In agitating against the traditional disregard of
our full national responsibility, a critic will do well to dispense with
the caution proper to the consideration of specific practical problems.
A radical theory does not demand in the interest of consistency an
equally radical action. It only demands a sincere attempt to push the
application of the theory as far as conditions will permit, and the
employment of means sufficient probably to accomplish the immediate
purpose. But in the endeavor to establish and popularize his theory, a
radical critic cannot afford any similar concessions. His own opinions
can become established only by the displacement of the traditional
opinions; and the way to displace a traditional error is not to be
compromising and conciliatory, but to be as uncompromising and as
irritating as one's abilities and one's vision of the truth will permit.
The critic in his capacity as agitator is living in a state of war with
his opponents; and the ethics of warfare are not the ethics of
statesmanship.
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