Notes for a blog post:

Whenever I read political, partisan, or ideological (not in the bad sense) writers—think Caldwell, Scialabba, Dalrymple, Gray, Lilla, Hitchens, Scruton, Judt, Chomsky, Fish, Lears, Douthat, Bouie, Ganz, deBoer, Christman, Dougherty, Moyn—I invariably revert to the “three thirds” rule.

That is, I utterly agree with a third of what they write; I utterly reject, even abhor another third; and I find the final third sufficiently thought-provoking that I’m not sure at first what to think, so I keep on chewing, ruminating, marinating.

I know I’ve found a writer I want to keep on reading when they elicit the “three thirds” reaction. But!

I’ve also found that, deep down, even when the thirds-rule is operative, I would still prefer for some writers' arguments—their ideal policies, social vision, mores—to “win out” in the world, over against others'. And that instinctive preference, which I’m sometimes loath to acknowledge, reveals, I think, what future I would most want to live in; what politics, in a word, I truly endorse.