In a spectacular piece in Taki’s Magazine, Dalrymple addresses the issues raised in his friend Alexander Boot’s new book, Democracy as a Neocon Trick. Absent an acceptance of human limitation usually provided by religion, Dalrymple says, politicians have come to believe that democratic election confers on them the authority to interfere in any aspect of life they deem in need of improvement.
One of the merits of Christianity at its best is that it reconciles the infinite greatness of man with his infinite littleness. On the one hand man is created in the image of God, and each and every individual is unique as an object of God’s love and concern; on the other, he is as nothing by comparison with his maker.
If you take away the second consideration, what you get is unlimited self-conceit.
…if a man has no inner sense of limitation, no mere constitution is going to restrain him…Where politics is the location of all virtue, politicians are the lightning conductors of all discontents.