Anti-Climacus

QUOTE FOR THE DAY: Tomorrow's class with be devoted to part of Tocqueville's Acien Regime, in part to give the students an example of non-positivism that doesn't rely on natural law, and in part because Tocqueville's message provides the right skeptical note on which to begin talking about theories of justice. It's easy to forget how witty of a writer he can be, when he chooses. Case in point (from Bk. II, Ch. 6):

Not until the century's end, when the literary methods we associate with Rousseau and Diderot had begun to make good and affected the spoken language, did the rather maudlin sensibility affected by these authors creep into the style of our administrators, and even our businessmen. Formerly so stiff an dessicated, our official style now became unctuous, almost lush--not invariably, it is true, but not infrequently. Thus we find a subdelegate lamenting in a letter to the Intendant in Paris that he often experiences "a grief most harrowing to a sensitive soul" in the execution of his duties.

He sets the bit up at the beginning of the paragraph, and holds until the very end the comedy. Nor does he draw attention to it; he leaves that to the reader. Brilliant.