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The agony of international relations is the need to try to practice politics without the basic conditions for political order.

Bernard Crick

Democracy is perhaps the most promiscuous word in the world of public affairs.
BERNARD CRICK

Affair Democracy World
Politics deserves much praise. Politics is a preoccupation of free men, and its existence is a test of freedom. The praise of free men is worth having, for it is the only praise which is free from either servility or condescension.
BERNARD CRICK

Men Political Politics
Politics is too often regarded as a poor relation, inherently dependent and subsidiary; it is rarely praised as something with a life and character of its own.
BERNARD CRICK

Character Poor Relation
BOREDOM with established truths is a great enemy of free men.
BERNARD CRICK

Boredom Enemy Men
The idea of a rational bureaucracy, of skill, merit, and consistency, is essential to all modern states.
BERNARD CRICK

Consistency Ideas Skills
The agony of international relations is the need to try to practice politics without the basic conditions for political order.
BERNARD CRICK

Agony Order Practice
In an abstract but real sense, Marxism arose through the breakdown first of religion and then of ‘reason’ as single sources of authority.
BERNARD CRICK

Firsts Real Reason
One of the symptoms of a declining social order is that its members have to give most of their time to politics, rather than to the real tasks of economic production, in an attempt to patch up the cracks already appearing from the ‘inner contradictions’ of such a system.
BERNARD CRICK

Giving Order Real
The praise of free men is worth having, for it is the only praise which is free from either servility or condescension.
BERNARD CRICK

Condescension Men Praise
What matters in Politics is what men actually do – sincerity is no excuse for acting unpolitically, and insincerity may be channelled by politics into good results.
BERNARD CRICK

Acting Matter Men What
Politics is a way of ruling in divided societies without undue violence…politics is not just a necessary evil; it is a realistic good.
BERNARD CRICK

Evil Political Politics
The plain truth is that what holds a free state together is neither general will nor a common interest, but simply politics itself.
BERNARD CRICK

Political Politics Together
Since the business of politics is the conciliation of differing interests, justice must not merely be done, but to be seen to be done.
BERNARD CRICK

Done Interest Justice
Politics has rough manners, but it is a very useful thing.
BERNARD CRICK

Manners Rough Things Useful
Individualism and Economic Order and many other works, which is, to put it briefly, the whole of laisser-faire economic theory, then plainly man as such a programmed predator has very little interest in being fraternal, or very little chance.
BERNARD CRICK

Economic Individualism Programmed Such Theory
Quite apart from the prestige of technology, people do, after all, prefer a simple idea to a complex one.
BERNARD CRICK

Ideas Simple Technology

The agony of international relations is the need to try to practice politics without the basic conditions for political order.

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The agony of international relations is the need to try to practice politics without the basic conditions for political order.

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