Without Lifting A Finger

Emerson to Carlyle: I read with interest what you say of the political omens in England. I could wish our country a better comprehension of its felicity. But government has come to be a trade, and is managed solely on commercial principles. A man plunges into politics to make his fortune, and only cares that the world should last his day. We have had in different parts of the country mobs and moblike legislation, and even moblike judicature, which have betrayed an almost godless state of society; so that I begin to think even here it behoves every man to quit his dependency on society as much as he can, as he would learn to go without crutches that will be soon plucked away from him, and settle with himself the principles he can stand upon, happen what may. There is reading, and public lecturing too, in this country, that I could recommend as medicine to any gentleman who finds the love of life too strong in him.

You say he was not political. Do you mean that he was apolitical? Because some people would say that the apolitical is just one variety of the political.  No, not apolitical, I would rather say anti-political. He thought that politics brought out the worst in people. It brought out the worst in people and also brought to the surface the worst types in society. He preferred to have nothing to do with it.  Did he preach this anti-political politics in his classes?  Of course not. He was very scrupulous about not preaching. His political beliefs you discovered only after you got to know him better.  You say his politics were Utopian. Are you implying they were unrealistic?  He looked forward to the day when politics and the state would wither away. I would call that Utopian. On the other hand, he did not invest a great deal of himself in these Utopian longings. He was too much of a Calvinist for that.  Please explain.  You want me to say what lay behind C...

Free from all ties, I had, on the one hand, quite heated arguments with my brother and Président de Rosanbo; and on the other, no less bitter discussions with Ginguené, La Harpe, and Chamfort. Since my early youth, my political impartiality had pleased no one. Moreover, I only attached importance to the questions raised at that time because of common ideas of human liberty and dignity; personally, politics bored me; my true life lay in more exalted regions.