Hah, I was right: it's Priestly.
Roy Hattersley Monday October 1, 2001 The Guardian
Halfway through August 1940 - the month in which the Battle of Britain was fought in the sky over south-east England - JB Priestly addressed his radio postscript to the people who believed that discussion about "winning the peace" was a dangerous distraction from the primary task of defeating the barbarian at the gate.
At the moment, he said, "you may not be interested in politics. But you can be sure that politics is interested in you". He was reminding the men and women who endured the rationing and survived the blitz that, after the war had ended, their lives would be crucially influenced by the result of the arguments that many of them dismissed as inappropriate to the times.
jks
--- Brad DeLong <delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
> OK guys. Any ideas? I think the real quote is "you
> may not be
> interested in war, but war is interested in you,"
> but I have no clue
> where it comes from.
>
>
> >X-EM-Version: 5, 0, 0, 0
> >X-EM-Registration: #3003520714B31D032830
> >X-Priority:
> >Reply-To: lfkaplan at earthlink.net
> >From: "Lawrence Kaplan" <lfkaplan at earthlink.net>
> >To: delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU
> >Subject: question
> >Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 7:58:55 -0400
> >Status:
> >
> >Dear Professor DeLong,
> >My name is Lawrence Kaplan, and I'm a writer at the
> New Republic. I've
> >been reading your stuff for some time and, as it
> happens, I came across a
> >thread in which you paraphase a quotation that I've
> been attempting to
> >track down for weeks--"You may not be interested in
> the dialectic, but the
> >dialectic is interested in you." I say paraphrase,
> because you are the
> >only source listed by google, which leads me to
> suspect that the actual
> >quote is a bit more elaborate. Any clues about the
> source--was it
> >Trotsky?--or the exact quote? I ask because I
> intend to use it in a
> >forthcoming piece. Many thanks. Best, Lawrence
> Kaplan
> >
> >--- Lawrence Kaplan
> >--- lfkaplan at earthlink.net
> >--- EarthLink: It's your Internet.
>
>
> ___________________________________
>
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