Many people take the phrase the dignity of politics to be an oxymoron, for much the same reason they take morality and politics to be one. In my lecture I shall argue that though we have many reasons to be disillusioned with politics, we must not lose sight of the ideals that inform that disillusionment and which alone can prevent it from degenerating into cynicism. We are more vulnerable to cynicism when we can see no way past moral and political fatigue because the language that could reveal the great good that citizenship can be, and the dignity of "politics as a vocation" (to quote the title of Max Weber's classical essay), is dying on us.

This lecture is part of the Wednesday Lectures, hosted by Raimond Gaita and held throughout June and July.