Posted by
JP on Thursday, May 29, 2008 6:39:44 AM
by John Mark Reynolds [author,
academic]
The
problem with ideologues in politics is their attempt to make a science
of something that is an art. Unlike Aristotle and Burke, ideologues
forget that politics is inexact and that wisdom has been hard won over
centuries of experience and thought. There is, really, no science of
politics. Of course, the same difficulties apply to ethics.
Ideologues
wish that politics and ethics could be made “scientific” or that bright
and perfect lines could be drawn between the moral order and politics,
but in doing so they are in error. They mistake an art that is very
human (politics) for a science. People are not so simple or tractable
as matter or energy . . . and they even these are complex enough!
Religious extremists simplify too much by merging church and state.
Secular radicals pretend there is a self-evident morality that can
drawn from “reason” alone. [more]