Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Politics: Would That I Could Avoid It

Using 'quietist' in a broad sense as opposed to the Molinos-Fenelon-Guyon sense, I would describe myself as a quietist rather than as an activist. The point of life is not action, but contemplation, not doing, but thinking. The vita activa is of course necessary (for some all of the time, and for people like me some of the time), but it is necessary as a means only. Its whole purpose is to subserve the vita contemplativa. To make of action an end in itself is absurd, and demonstrably so, though I will spare you the demonstration. If you are assiduous you can dig it out of Aristotle, Aquinas and Josef Pieper.

So the dominant note of my personality is quietism in the sense just sketched. The Big Questions turn my crank, not this foreground rubbish about illegal immigration, social security, eminent domain, etc. It would be nice to be able to let the world and its violent nonsense go to hell while cultivating my garden in peace.


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