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Modern systematic politics, whether liberal, conservative, radical, or socialist, simply has to be rejected from a standpoint that owes genuine allegiance to the tradition of the virtues; for modern politics itself expresses in its institutional forms a systematic rejection of that tradition
Alasdair Macintyre
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote criticizes modern politics for abandoning traditional virtues.

Alasdair MacIntyre argues that contemporary political systems, regardless of their ideological labels, fundamentally depart from and undermine the traditional virtues that have historically guided human behavior and social organization. By rejecting these virtues, modern politics creates institutional frameworks that fail to promote a moral and virtuous society.

Themes

PoliticsTraditionVirtuesValuesSocietyInstitutionalSystematic

In practice

Example use cases

In a debate about the ethics of political systems, I would use this quote to emphasize the importance of traditional virtues.

More from Alasdair Macintyre

It is through hearing stories about wicked stepmothers, lost children, good but misguided kings, wolves that suckle twin boys, youngest sons who receive no inheritance but must make their own way in the world, and eldest sons who waste their inheritance on riotous living and go into exile to live with the swine, that children learn or mislearn both what a child and what a parent is, what the cast of characters may be in the drama into which they have been born and what the ways of the world are.
Alasdair MacintyreRead
Imprisoning philosophy within the professionalizations and specializations of an institutionalized curriculum, after the manner of our contemporary European and North American culture, is arguably a good deal more effective in neutralizing its effects than either religious censorship or political terror
Alasdair MacintyreRead
There ought not be two histories, one of political and moral action and one of political and moral theorizing, because there were not two pasts, one populated only by actions, the other only by theories. Every action is the bearer and expression of more or less theory-laden beliefs and concepts; every piece of theorizing and every expression of belief is a politcal and moral action.
Alasdair MacintyreRead

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