Gee’s Reviews > The world of nations;: Reflections on American history, politics, and culture > Status Update

Violence belongs to the realm of necessity; it is part of the natural order of things, whereas the proper object of politics is “the creation of a stabilized universe, an artificial universe (artificial in the sense that it is made by the skill of man), in which man recognizes forms and objects, assigns names and places, and creates a continuity with the help of (but also against) the fluidity of the universe.”

Traditionally it was conservatives who defended balance-of-power politics and derided the dream of an international order run according to legal principles. It was conservatives who were skeptical about causes and crusades, distrustful of “enthusiasm” in any form. Kennan shared this distrust. Not only that, he expressed certain reservations about democracy itself, reminiscent of Tocqueville.

It is only the left which, both in its politics and in its culture, clings to the illusion that competence is equally distributed among people of good intentions and regards any attempt to uphold professional standards as a betrayal of democracy.

The need to establish genealogical links with the past, characteristic of newly arrived élites in every period, testifies to the weakness of more substantial connections.

egalitarian theory and practice insisted on the right of all men to citizenship and to full membership in the community; on the other hand, they insisted that all citizens live by the same rules of character and conduct. The articulation of a single standard of honor was the duty of self-reliance and self-support—instead of uniting men, tended to divide them and to widen the distance.