Ruling Passions: Political Offices and Democratic Ethics by Andrew Sabl (POSC212)

OK, first I have to confess that it really discouraged me when I saw that Sabl is one year younger than me. Good grief! I'm so intellectually behind! And then I met him (he's a professor at UCLA) and he's a very nice person, and probably brilliant, and human - and that made me feel better. I don't have to be a brilliant political scientist on top of everything else - I can leave that sort of thing in the hands of people like Sabl.

Which is one of the tenets of his book - the division of labor in the political arena ("governing pluralism"). He focuses on three "offices" (using good and bad examples): senator (using Everett Dirksen and Joseph McCarthy as examples), moral activist (Martin Luther King, Jr. and Frances Willard), and organizer (Ella Baker and Stokely Carmichael; allusions to Saul Alinsky and Robert Moses). He then developed his theory of what is "good" for each of these offices (which is definitely not the same), all within the context of "democratic constancy."

Democratic constancy is an interesting theory - it is anti-perfectionist. It accepts the humanness of people and leaders, while expecting a striving towards at least half-virtues. Killing is bad, lying is bad - but compromising and deal-making and working for "enlightened self-interest" (Tocqueville) is good. If we as citizens expect moral perfection of our leaders, we will always be bitterly disappointed (as will they be if they expect it of us). Instead, we can look at overall character contextually.

This was not an easy breeze-through on a beach kind of book. Particularly when using theories from Aristotle, Madison and Hamilton, and Tocqueville to develop his own, my attention wandered. His use of examples, however, was edifying and clear. I learned a ton and most of it made very good sense.