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:
“The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things.”
—Baruch (Benedict)
“I don’t care for success. The ideas sitting in my head are annoyed by, and envious of, that which I’ve already written.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“Public morning diversions were the last dissipating habit she obtained; but when that was accomplished, her time was squandered away, the power of reflection was lost, [and] her ideas were all centered in dress, drums, routs, operas, masquerades, and every kind of public diversion. Visionary schemes of pleasure were continually present to her imagination, and her brain was whirled about by such a dizziness that she might properly be said to labor under the distemper called the vertigo.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)