“While progressives have great contempt for the past, they often have a more accurate sense of the past’s worth than conservatives do. Naïve and unrefined conservatives are sometimes willing to sell off huge tracts of the past at cut rates, but progressives who buy up the past never underestimate its worth. Because traditional things are so profoundly valuable, progressives are constantly angling for conservatives to give them up. The person who controls icons of the past also has some power over everyone whose identity is represented by those icons.”
-from Love What Lasts