Buckley’s Mix

The two cultures

Posted February 21, 2009, 09:02 ET Comments Off

I noted a post back that Michael Ignatieff had lectured for me on Simone Weil, and that led me to wonder about other politicians who displayed any talent or knowledge in fields beyond politics, economics or public policy. Burke wrote on aethetics and Gladstone debated theology with Cardinal Manning, but who is their like today? I don’t mean writers such as Grant, Churchill or De Gaulle, or very minor poets such as Eugene McCarthy. I mean the real thing…

Here’s my list: Vaclav Havel, Ignace Paderewski, Giovanni Gentile, Yeats, Maurice Barres. No doubt others could be added. But how very few there are. And for the most part, men of the right. A coincidence? No, because these for the most part were poets first, who came to politics by way of romantic nationalism.

Category: Politics as mental Illness, culture
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