Hobsbawm was also a deeply engaged intellectual, wanting to change — not merely understand — the world. Here, he was a good deal less efficacious than he would have liked. He stuck to his principles — which infuriated other intellectuals who preferred the personal melodrama of Damascene salvation from their earlier convictions — and preferred sometimes to be dogmatic rather than pragmatic; but in an age when principles and opinion blur, where clicking on the thumbs up ‘Like’ symbol passes for critical judgment, one grew to admire his steadfastness.
Ismail Lagardien
Nihil humani a me alienum puto