Why an ideologue can’t lose

Why an ideologue can’t lose

 

Balliol College, University of Oxford
The façade of Balliol College, Oxford, where James Burnham (whose writings were a major influence on me during my teenage years and into my early thirties) studied after graduating at the top of his Princeton class.  (Wikimedia Commons)

 

An ideologue — one who thinks ideologically — can’t lose.  He can’t lose because his answer, his interpretation and his attitude have been determined in advance of the particular experience or observation.  They are derived from the ideology, and not subject to the facts.

James Burnham (1905-1987)

 

 

 


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