"The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important"
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Albert J. Nock points away from the drama of personalities and toward the harder work of principle. Asking who is right immediately invites ego, tribe, and scorekeeping. It frames disagreement as a contest to be won, not a problem to be solved. Asking what is right demands reasons, standards, and criteria that can be examined without regard to the victor. It presses for norms that hold whether they favor me or you, now or later. The move depersonalizes judgment and shifts the locus of debate from reputation to reality, from loyalty to logic.
That turn fits Nock’s broader outlook as an early 20th-century American essayist and classical liberal who distrusted mass politics and the cult of leadership. Writing across the Progressive Era and into the New Deal, he worried that public life had become a theater of heroes and villains, where policy followed charisma and resentment rather than principle. In works like Our Enemy, the State and the essay Isaiahs Job, he argued for cultivating a small audience committed to enduring standards rather than chasing popularity. His emphasis on what is right reflected a conviction that sound social order arises from consistent principles of justice and liberty, not from the triumph of one faction or the moral superiority of its champions.
There is also a moral discipline embedded here. Seeking who is right tempts self-justification; seeking what is right invites self-correction. The former inflames partisanship and scapegoating; the latter allows opponents to converge on shared criteria and sometimes shared conclusions. In policy, it means debating rules, incentives, and evidence rather than praising leaders or condemning enemies. In personal conduct, it asks whether an action can be justified as a general practice, not whether it flatters identity. Nock’s counsel is a bid for clarity and humility: begin with principles that can survive the removal of names.
That turn fits Nock’s broader outlook as an early 20th-century American essayist and classical liberal who distrusted mass politics and the cult of leadership. Writing across the Progressive Era and into the New Deal, he worried that public life had become a theater of heroes and villains, where policy followed charisma and resentment rather than principle. In works like Our Enemy, the State and the essay Isaiahs Job, he argued for cultivating a small audience committed to enduring standards rather than chasing popularity. His emphasis on what is right reflected a conviction that sound social order arises from consistent principles of justice and liberty, not from the triumph of one faction or the moral superiority of its champions.
There is also a moral discipline embedded here. Seeking who is right tempts self-justification; seeking what is right invites self-correction. The former inflames partisanship and scapegoating; the latter allows opponents to converge on shared criteria and sometimes shared conclusions. In policy, it means debating rules, incentives, and evidence rather than praising leaders or condemning enemies. In personal conduct, it asks whether an action can be justified as a general practice, not whether it flatters identity. Nock’s counsel is a bid for clarity and humility: begin with principles that can survive the removal of names.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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