In defence of Politics : the nature of human society

HERE is simply an essay, 'occasioned in the words of Hobbes-
'by the disorders of the present time', an attempt to justify
politics in plain words by saying what it is. I have tried above
all to be very brief, because I believe the essential matter is very
simple. The reader may welcome an unfashionable attempt to
avoid covering him with all the author's chaff on everything
before ever the grain is reached. Since I earn my living as a
university teacher in a subject called 'Government', I am con-
stantly depressed by the capacity of academics to over-compli-
cate things. So in trying to characterise and defend political
activity as something far more rare and more precious than
people commonly suppose, while I show common ground
between rival doctrines, such as conservatism, liberalism and
socialism, yet in no way do I try to analyse precisely the
meaning of their rival claims nor to discuss how to judge
between them-what is sometimes thought of as political theory
or philosophy. This is not, then, a systematic treatise. Here is
simply an attempt, inspired by seeing a fairly obvious growth of
impatience with politics in the “new nations of the world, and
provoked by a personal dislike of exhortation and mere cant
about 'the ideals of freedom', to describe what in fact are the
minimum benefits of politics as an activity.