Word: abstract
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...sense of political urgency. His arguments may not have always been clearly reasoned, but they sparkled with the anticipation of a radically different and much better world. His maturation as he approached middle-age has involved a more staid and withdrawn perception of political realities, reverting to more abstract and idealistic conceptualization. He originally developed his ideas on morality in warfare to politicize his opposition to the Vietnam war. But the final product of this thinking, Just and Unjust Wars, was not published until 1977. A masterpiece of careful and intelligent ethical reasoning and comparative history, it did not have...
...revolutionaries of his day, voicing his impatience with their "inclination to substitute discussion for action, talk for work, the inclination for undertaking everything under the sun without finishing anything." Obviously he was right--although the republican and communist revolutions of modern history have derived their inspiration in part from abstract theorization and radical principles, the forces that toppled the ancien regimes in both Europe and Asia depended primarily on the power politics and dogma that motivated insurgents among both peasantry and gentry...
...radical intelligentsia. At least, he must conceive of himself as a bright light in the revolutionary vanguard. But Walzer is not so easy to pin down. He emphasizes that his writings have been for the most part politically motivated. Still, his most engaging work wanders into the realm of abstract generalities, indulging in the grandiose and ineffectual idealism that Lenin scorned...
...Stratford, there was Ron Daniels' experimentally modernized Romeo and Juliet, with Romeo (Anton Lesser) and his mates decked out in boots and leather jackets, and Juliet (Judy Buxton) playing her balcony scene atop what looked like an abstract painting. Also at Stratford, R.S.C. Veteran Alan Howard, directed by Terry Hands, was essaying both of Shakespeare's Richards, II and III. In the latter, a sort of cooked-up Jacobean melodrama, Howard hobbled about a raked stage somewhat more fleetly than he actually managed some of the lines...
...Senate. But there will at least be a basic consistency, and a conscious awareness of how and why he deliberately chooses to vary the course, to avoid this shoal or take advantage of that prevailing political wind. Then policy-making ceases to be an exercise in the abstract, or a matter of rootless, drifting pragmatism. Intellectual discipline returns to it, and arguments once more have a focus and coherence that give edge to the process of public debate...