"Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive"
About this Quote
Buckley’s line works like a friendly warning delivered with a lawyer’s smile: sure, dream big - just don’t try to implement any of it. The jab isn’t at idealism as a moral impulse; it’s at idealism as governance, where slogans have to survive budgets, bureaucracy, and voters who notice when the bill comes due. By praising idealism in the abstract and condemning it in contact with reality, he keeps the halo while denying the program. That split is the whole maneuver.
The subtext is a conservative theory of friction. Reality, in Buckley’s telling, isn’t an arena for transformation so much as a gauntlet of trade-offs that punishes purity. “Costs” does double duty: fiscal expense, yes, but also social disruption, unintended consequences, and the political capital burned by reformers who overpromise. It’s a neat way to reframe moral urgency as managerial recklessness, turning the reformer into the irresponsible party.
Context matters: Buckley built modern American conservatism by giving it a patrician voice that could make restraint sound like wisdom rather than fear. In the postwar era - with Great Society liberalism, Cold War stakes, campus radicalism, and the expanding administrative state - idealism was often the brand language of progressives. Buckley’s retort is to concede the romance, then invoke the invoice.
The line’s real intent is prophylactic: to inoculate readers against being moved. Feel inspired if you must; just remember that once your ideals ask for legislation, they’ll need a ledger - and Buckley is already auditing.
The subtext is a conservative theory of friction. Reality, in Buckley’s telling, isn’t an arena for transformation so much as a gauntlet of trade-offs that punishes purity. “Costs” does double duty: fiscal expense, yes, but also social disruption, unintended consequences, and the political capital burned by reformers who overpromise. It’s a neat way to reframe moral urgency as managerial recklessness, turning the reformer into the irresponsible party.
Context matters: Buckley built modern American conservatism by giving it a patrician voice that could make restraint sound like wisdom rather than fear. In the postwar era - with Great Society liberalism, Cold War stakes, campus radicalism, and the expanding administrative state - idealism was often the brand language of progressives. Buckley’s retort is to concede the romance, then invoke the invoice.
The line’s real intent is prophylactic: to inoculate readers against being moved. Feel inspired if you must; just remember that once your ideals ask for legislation, they’ll need a ledger - and Buckley is already auditing.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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