Ideas
According to Crick, the ideologically driven leader practises a form of anti-politics in which the goal is the mobilisation of the populace towards a common end—even on pain of death. Mao Zedong of China said, "Power grows from the barrel of a gun," and Joseph Stalin of Russia said, "The Pope? How many battalions does he control?" Such views, in Crick's estimation, are anti-political, because the speaker seeks to overcome any ethics of his constituency with the threat of violence.
The "political virtues" were an important feature of Crick's classic book, In Defence of Politics; he saw them as an alternative to "ideology" or any "absolute-sounding ethic". They included but were not limited to:
- Prudence
- Conciliation
- Compromise
- Variety
- Adaptability
- Liveliness
Read more about this topic: Bernard Crick
Famous quotes containing the word ideas:
“Our ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
“A religion, that is, a true religion, must consist of ideas and facts both; not of ideas alone without facts, for then it would be mere Philosophy;Mnor of facts alone without ideas, of which those facts are symbols, or out of which they arise, or upon which they are grounded: for then it would be mere History.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“Style and Structure are the essence of a book; great ideas are hogwash.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)