The history of the 20th century is the history of government overreaching, and liberalism becoming less and less popular as people identified it with an intrusive power which took away too many of their freedoms . . . To me, liberalism is a temperament more than a set of political positions. And it's the temperament of someone who believes that humans can, by their own collective, concerted, rational action, improve life. In other words, progress is possible, even if it is not inevitable, and it is through the collective action of human beings that progress takes place, not through atomized individuals going about their own private lives. Temperamentally, they are very similar and it seems to me that Gore has now found his father's voice. . . .
People argue in conscious, rational terms . . .
They think that their positions are logical, and make sense and are defensible. But I think the positions come out of much darker, more inchoate places. And I know mine came from a kind of unfinished relationship to my father, which was cut short when he died. And ever since then, I've had to imagine what he would say. . . . In a sense, each generation was left with ghosts and a written record and an inheritance and then had to figure it out on its own.