In this conversation, RevDem editor Michał Matlak speaks with Michael Ignatieff about his recent book On Consolation: Finding Solace in Dark Times (Macmillan, 2021), a series of portraits of writers, artists, and musicians searching for consolation. Ignatieff shows how, throughout history, people in very difficult life situations have looked to arts, philosophy, and religion to regain hope. The book reconstructs the moments when these figures found the courage to face their fate and find hope. One of the arguments in On Consolation is that we can revive these traditions of consolation and they can still help us. In this conversation, Ignatieff and Matlak discuss the role of religion in the modern world, whether conservative liberalism is possible today, cancel culture, the (im)possibility of European integration, and much more.