Justice & Law Quote by Ian Mcewan

The sting here is that it sounds like advice and lands like an autopsy. McEwan frames socialism not as a doomed economics lesson but as a rhetorical mismatch: it speaks in the register of moral aspiration while the world, too often, rewards suspicion, tribal loyalty, and short-term fear. The phrasing is almost cruelly balanced - "good", "idealism", "justice", "faith" - a string of virtues that reads like a campaign poster. Then comes the verdict: "a severe disadvantage". The pivot works because it treats decency as a handicap in the rough marketplace of politics.

McEwan's intent isn't simply to dunk on socialists; it's to diagnose how narratives win. By "concentrating on what is good", the socialist appeal assumes people want to see themselves as generous actors in a shared project. That can be true in private life, or in bursts of crisis solidarity, but politics is where identity hardens and incentives distort. The subtext is that opponents - especially modern conservatives and populists - often win by making darker assumptions about human nature feel like "realism": people are selfish, resources are scarce, strangers are threats, the future is a scam. If you tell voters they're better than that, you risk sounding naive; if you tell them they're right to be wary, you sound honest.

Context matters: post-Cold War, "socialism" carries the baggage of failed states and bureaucratic caricature, even as inequality resurges. McEwan captures the bleak paradox of liberal democracies: the more a movement relies on the best in us, the more it must compete against strategies built to exploit the worst.