"Liberalism Depends All Too Much on Having an Optimistic View of Human Nature"

"Mailer's leftism was easy to identify: he despised corporate power and its influence on American culture, he hoped to subvert most traditions that governed American life, and, from John F. Kennedy to John Kerry, he uniformly supported Democrats in national elections. The conservative aspect is more subtle and interesting. Hayek would have appreciated it, because it was Mailer’s own avoidance of the 'fatal conceit'—the belief, as Hayek described it, that human beings can predict, solve, and troubleshoot every communal problem, large and small."

In a 2018 American Conservative article, David Masciotra discusses Norman Mailer's "left conservativism."