Sublime

What Lincoln had shown was the practicality, in politics, of a moral standard. I mean by this an external frame of reference that shapes interests and actions, not—like Douglas’s—an internal one that only reflects them. Lincoln’s didn’t arise from faith, or formal ethics, or even the law, a profession necessarily pragmatic in its pursuit of justice

Most writing in schools and colleges is a perversion of practical style: the student pretends that he is writing a memorandum. He pretends that he knows more than the reader, that the reader needs this information, and that his job is to impart that information in a way that is easy for the reader to parse. This pretense is supposed to be practice

These days, most of our arguments about justice are about how to distribute the fruits of prosperity, or the burdens of hard times, and how to define the basic rights of citizens. In these domains, considerations of welfare and freedom predominate. But arguments about the rights and wrongs of economic arrangements often lead us back to Aristotle’s

“The hypothesis which I wish to advance is that in the actual world which we inhabit the language of morality is in the same state of grave disorder as the language of natural science in the imaginary world I have described.”10

And now the teacher has his work cut out for him. Because he does, in fact, have to be more rigorous and professional than other teachers. He does have to make the difficult decision of expelling students who aren’t serious enough. And he has to persevere enough with his corps of students that they actually do win competitions.

Science, too, came under attack by radical postmodernists, who argued that scientific theories are socially constructed: they are informed by the identity of the person positing the theory and the values of the culture in which they are formed; therefore, science cannot possibly make claims to neutrality or universal truths.

It turns out, people matter. You can study all the theory in the world and not be prepared for the hair standing up on the back of your neck because you just don’t trust someone.