Our pasts, ourselves.

• Author: Gillespie, Nick
• Position: Soundbite - Lewis Lapham - Interview

Lewis Lapham is the editor of Lapham's Quarterly, which he founded after ending a decades-long stint as editor of Harper's in 2006. The glossy magazine mixes new essays with historical works, focusing on Western history and culture, reason.com Editor in Chief Nick Gillespie spoke with Lapham in January. Watch video of this interview at reason.com.

Q: What's your aim in curating things from the past?

A: To know our past is to discover our self.

Q: Do you feel that that's more urgent now?

A: Yes.

Q: Is this always a constant? Because you are quite curmudgeonly. You lament Google for inadvertent censorship in the way search engine optimization buries good stuff with dross. You've said that "Facebook has many of the properties of the Holy Inquisition ... the [Soviet secret police[ NKVD and the Gestapo were content aggregators." But you too are a content aggregator. So how are you performing a different function than Facebook?

A: I'm trying to open doors to readers of all kinds, I'm trying to make available a resource. I'm not trying to data-mine it to sell something. Television is advertising, and increasingly advertising gets onto the Internet. It's a pitch. I'm not making a pitch. I'm saying here's something you can learn from. See how beautiful this is.

Q: Television or video entertainment has changed where now people strip out the ads. One of the things that's interesting is streaming video with HBO. It's always a commodity. But commodities, including Lapham's Quarterly, aren't a bad thing, right?

A: No.

Q: You brought a historical perspective to Harper's as well as Lapham's. Is this just the latest turn of being a Cassandra, that things are just getting worse and worse in America? Or have we actually reached a point where we're no longer capable or historical self-examination? Are you worried that we're going downhill?

A: No. Well, downhill. I don't know about downhill.

Q: I mean intellectually, economically, socially.

A: I don't think so. You have Henry Ford saying...