Politics & Power Quote by Jacques Barzun

Barzun’s joke lands because it weaponizes a bodily metaphor to mock two political temperaments at once: the liberal as airborne idealist, the conservative as self-silencing bumbler. “Both feet planted firmly in the air” is deliciously impossible, a visual gag that paints liberalism as confident levitation - principles so elevated they lose traction with reality. Then he snaps the hinge: “as opposed to,” a phrase that pretends to offer balanced taxonomy while preparing a punch line. The conservative, with “both feet firmly planted in his mouth,” isn’t merely wrong; he’s physically committed to his own embarrassment, immobilized by what he can’t stop saying.

The intent isn’t neutral description; it’s a satirical sorting mechanism. Barzun, an educator and cultural historian who spent a career suspicious of slogans and intellectual fashions, is teasing political identities as performance styles: liberalism as aspiration, conservatism as reflex. The subtext is that each side has a signature vice. Liberals float; conservatives choke. The symmetry makes it feel fair even as it clearly has a favorite.

Context matters: Barzun wrote across decades when “liberal” and “conservative” were hardening into brand identities, less arguments than tribes. His line anticipates today’s pundit economy, where loftiness can substitute for policy and gaffes can become a governing method. It works because it’s mean in a disciplined way: a single image that reduces ideology to posture, then lets the reader decide whether to laugh, wince, or recognize themselves.