Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Porous peroration

[His very ‘success’ legitimises ambition, greed, intrigue, double-dealing... Ambition, greed, intrigue legitimised, every one becomes every one’s rival. Every one comes to suspect every one. That irreplaceable adhesive — Ibn Khaldun’s ‘group spirit’ — is rent asunder.
Both relationships — the one of the leader with his circle, as well as that of members of the circle with each other — are transformed. Every relationship is now pure and simple barter. The leader seeks out not colleagues but clients, not partners but dependents, not associates but instruments. He uses the henchmen, of course. But they also use him.
Arun Shourie > The end of Ideology > Indian Express, Wednesday, Jul 15, 2009 > On the way down > Arun Shourie > IE]

Arun Shourie lamenting The end of Ideology in Indian Express today is an exercise in juvenility. No one knows better than him that politics is like that only and as one who has shared the spoils, he is invoking lofty ethics unjustifiably. Shourie better gets rid of the illusion that he still possesses the hideous phrase he uttered once apropos historians. [TNM]

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