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Better a thinker or a doer?

Politicians cannot be the perfect blend of intellectual and action hero

By AC Grayling  
September 18, 2014
October 2014 issue of Prospect magazine

Michael Foot: Thoughtful or useless? © John Redman/AP/Press Association Images

Should politicians be thinkers or doers? The hope that springs readily to mind is that they should be both, as judiciously as possible. There is truth in this cliché—but the key is the role played by judiciousness. The point is interestingly various: thinking should sometimes prevent doing; thinking should help to distinguish which of competing options for doing is best; thinking sometimes just is doing; the necessity for doing has to…

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AC Grayling

AC Grayling is a philosopher and the master of the New College of the Humanities

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