"The egoist is fooled by no ideals: he discards them or uses them, as may suit his own interest"
About this Quote
An egoist, Robinson suggests, has the one talent politics secretly rewards: immunity to lofty language. “Fooled by no ideals” turns ideals into a kind of con - not because ideals are inherently fake, but because they’re easily deployed as moral camouflage. The line works by reversing the usual hierarchy. Ideals aren’t the guiding force; self-interest is. Ideals are props.
The sentence structure is a small piece of rhetorical discipline: first the flat claim (“fooled by no ideals”), then the blunt menu of options (“discards them or uses them”), then the kicker that dissolves any remaining romance (“as may suit his own interest”). It’s the tonal equivalent of watching someone quietly remove the velvet curtain from a stage and reveal the machinery. There’s no melodrama here, just the cold administrative clarity of a man who’s seen slogans travel farther than policies.
As subtext, Robinson isn’t merely condemning egoists; he’s warning you how they operate. They don’t fight ideals head-on - that would concede the battlefield. They treat ideals as interchangeable tools: today’s principle becomes tomorrow’s obstacle, depending on which way power is flowing. That’s a sharper indictment than calling someone corrupt. Corruption implies deviation; Robinson implies a coherent worldview where “principle” is only useful when it persuades other people.
Context matters: Robinson lived through late-19th and early-20th century politics, an era thick with reform movements, party machines, and moral crusades that could be sincere, cynical, or both. In that environment, the egoist isn’t an aberration. He’s the savvy reader of the room, fluent in the dialect of virtue without being bound by it.
The sentence structure is a small piece of rhetorical discipline: first the flat claim (“fooled by no ideals”), then the blunt menu of options (“discards them or uses them”), then the kicker that dissolves any remaining romance (“as may suit his own interest”). It’s the tonal equivalent of watching someone quietly remove the velvet curtain from a stage and reveal the machinery. There’s no melodrama here, just the cold administrative clarity of a man who’s seen slogans travel farther than policies.
As subtext, Robinson isn’t merely condemning egoists; he’s warning you how they operate. They don’t fight ideals head-on - that would concede the battlefield. They treat ideals as interchangeable tools: today’s principle becomes tomorrow’s obstacle, depending on which way power is flowing. That’s a sharper indictment than calling someone corrupt. Corruption implies deviation; Robinson implies a coherent worldview where “principle” is only useful when it persuades other people.
Context matters: Robinson lived through late-19th and early-20th century politics, an era thick with reform movements, party machines, and moral crusades that could be sincere, cynical, or both. In that environment, the egoist isn’t an aberration. He’s the savvy reader of the room, fluent in the dialect of virtue without being bound by it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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