PETER WEHNER

Politics is about making institutions work somewhat better, helping people’s lives at the margins

Politics is less than perfect because we are less than perfect. We therefore need to approach it with some modesty. Politics is not like mathematics, where clear premises and deductive reasoning can lead to exact answers.

We need the self-confidence to admit that at best we possess only a partial understanding of the truth, which can be enlarged by refining our views in light of new arguments, new circumstances and new insights. But this requires us to listen to others, to weigh their arguments with care, and maybe even to learn from them.

Our democratic belief that anyone can be a political leader paradoxically feeds into the anti-democratic belief that we should look to one person to quickly and easily save us. No one, alone, can fix it, and in our system of government, this authoritarian approach is a prescription for catastrophe.

We need the self-confidence to admit that at best we possess only a partial understanding of the truth, which can be enlarged by refining our views in light of new arguments, new circumstances and new insights. But this requires us to listen to others, to weigh their arguments with care, and maybe even to learn from them.

Politics is less than perfect because we are less than perfect. We therefore need to approach it with some modesty. Politics is not like mathematics, where clear premises and deductive reasoning can lead to exact answers.

Politics is about making institutions work somewhat better, helping people’s lives at the margins

Our democratic belief that anyone can be a political leader paradoxically feeds into the anti-democratic belief that we should look to one person to quickly and easily save us. No one, alone, can fix it, and in our system of government, this authoritarian approach is a prescription for catastrophe.