THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CONSERVATIVE AND A REPUBLICAN

Peace the Aristocrat (Albert Jay Nock, May 1915, Atlantic Monthly)

[M]en are very little governed by reason and logic; and this accounts for the fact that in an issue between the philosopher and a politician, the politician always wins. He may, nay, invariably does, have a worse case: but he regularly carries it, because he knows how men act and how they may be induced to act. He must know, for otherwise he could not be a politician; this instinctive knowledge is the primary essential qualification for his squalid trade.

One can hardly read an essay by Mr. Nock without finding at least a tidbit that's still pertinent today. Here he's actually talking about why peace activists always lose to the war party, but the point applies generally. One wonders though if those who possess such knowledge, of how men are truly moved to action, deserve to be called practitioners of a "squalid" trade. They perceive and trade in the truth about human nature, while the philosophers, so-called here, may reason exquisitely but are ultimately trading in untruths. We shouldn't hate our natures so much that we consider their regular functioning inherently immoral; save the disparagements for the departures from accepted norms. Politics too is an honorable profession, no less because it doesn't waft about the ether in pursuit of utopian fantasies, no matter how lovely they may be to the dreamers. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 10, 2003 4:34 PM