A few weeks ago I was trying to formulate a pithy little formulation for social media. It went something like this, "Political theory is a matter of determining which principle a polity should follow; political practice is a matter of interpreting a principle differently for one's followers." It did not quite work as a post no matter how I reworked it, but what I was trying to get at is the pervasive and unavoidable inconsistency of the relationship between principle and practice in contemporary politics. We have so-called "free speech warriors" who are very worried about the "chilling effects" on free speech by students who protest speakers, but have nothing at all to say about state governments banning the teaching of Plato, and a federal government that makes education funding contingent on universities promoting their agenda, and, more recently, we have defenders of the right to bear arms arguing that just carrying a gun is enough to justify a summary execution. All of this goes beyond hypocrisy. Since I could not get it to work in a few characters, I thought that I would reflect on it more here.
