Two groups of thinkers that have had a lasting impact on American culture had a lasting impact on Mr. Glazer as well. The Partisan Review writers Dwight Macdonald and Hannah Arendt were early influences; another contributor to the magazine, the art critic Clement Greenberg, helped get him his first job. While he was at Commentary, Mr. Glazer’s circle widened. But if, as his longtime friend Irving Kristol put it, a neoconservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality, then Mr. Glazer got hit over the head. But as they grew more extreme — “nihilistic” was Mr. Glazer’s word — he turned away from them and his own leftist past as well.

Source: New York Times January 19, 2019 21:26 UTC