Notes of a complex personality …

… Of Love and Politics - The Los Angeles Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

… Oakeshott disliked the prevailing utilitarianism and bureaucratization of the latter and criticized the conventional understanding of politics as who gets what, when, and how. Politics, he maintained, is not so much about the distribution of resources as about making constant adjustments to a reality in permanent flux. As such, politics is a second-rate human activity, one that involves a certain degree of mental vulgarity and a simplification of life. “A general interest & preoccupation with politics,” Oakeshott argued, “is the surest sign of a general decay in a society. A universal preoccupation with rights, interests, affairs of government, political questions in general is fatal to the public peace & individual happiness.”

Well, he got that right.