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When an insecure, malleable, relativistic culture meets a culture that is anchored, confident and strengthened by common doctrines, it is generally the former that changes to suit the latter.

— Christopher Caldwell Reflections on the Revolution in Europe (2009)

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More quotes by Christopher Caldwell

Europe can be the scene of world history even if it’s not the protagonist in world history, but it seems to show very little sign of being the protagonist.

Christopher Caldwell on the Situation in Europe (2017)

Bizarrely, as immigration began to change Europe at its economic and cultural core, the political vocabulary remained the same as when immigration had been a fringe phenomenon. People kept talking about restaurants.

Reflections on the Revolution in Europe (2009)

One moves swiftly and imperceptibly from a world in which affirmative action can't be ended because its beneficiaries are too weak to a world in which it can't be ended because its beneficiaries are too strong.

Reflections on the Revolution in Europe (2009)

In no country in Europe does the bulk of the population aspire to live in a bazaar of world cultures. Yet all European countries are coming to the wrenching realization that they have somehow, without anyone's actively choosing it, turned into such bazaars.

Reflections on the Revolution in Europe (2009)

If one abandons the idea that Western Europeans are rapacious and exploitative by nature, and that Africans, Asians, and other would-be immigrants are inevitably their victims, then the fundamental difference between colonization and labor migration ceases to be obvious.

Reflections on the Revolution in Europe (2009)

All Christopher Caldwell quotes →

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Christopher Caldwell (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.