THE POLITICS OF PARTY PARITY

摘要

The pedigree of the word "polite" traces to the Greek word "polis," meaning city, the molecular unit of Greek politics. Politeness, the Greeks understood, is a prerequisite for civilized civic dealings between citizens. Today Americans intuit this, and the candidates in their sprint to Nov. 7 will be wise to temper their aggressiveness, as they did during the first debate. Recently the nastiness of politics has seemed inversely proportional to the stakes of politics. This year, with the nation giddily prosperous, and less threatened from abroad than at any time since the 1920s, politics is even more peripheral to Americans than usual.