Please note: In order to keep Hive up to date and provide users with the best features, we are no longer able to fully support Internet Explorer. The site is still available to you, however some sections of the site may appear broken. We would encourage you to move to a more modern browser like Firefox, Edge or Chrome in order to experience the site fully.

Quarterly Essay 16 Breach of Trust : Truth, Morality and Politics, EPUB eBook

Quarterly Essay 16 Breach of Trust : Truth, Morality and Politics EPUB

Part of the Quarterly Essay series

EPUB

Please note: eBooks can only be purchased with a UK issued credit card and all our eBooks (ePub and PDF) are DRM protected.

Description

In the fourth Quarterly Essay of 2004, Raimond Gaita confronts essential questions about politics as it is practised today. What do politicians mean when they talk about "trust"? Why is truthfulness important? Are we as politically and morally divided as the Americans? Does the war on terror authorise leaders to do things that once were considered beyond the pale?

Gaita argues for a conception of politics in which morality is not an optional extra. He discusses why successful politicians must at times be economical with the truth, but shows a way beyond cynicism on the one hand and moralising on the other. Politics, he says, is conceivably a noble vocation, as well as potentially a tragic one. He looks closely at patriotism and its distortions, and the temptation to betray our deepest values in the act of protecting ourselves. Combining gentle evocation with gloves-off argument, Breach of Trust is a clarion call from one of Australia's leading thinkers.

"I have never met anyone who believes that politicians should never lie ... But of course there are limits. They are not set in the heavens, but in culture." —Raimond Gaita, Breach Of Trust

Information

Information