The nature and lessons of politics drawn from stories by Guy de Maupassant and Marcel Prévost are the topic of the December New Criterion essay from our favorite doctor. Please note that a paid subscription to the New Criterion is required to view the article in its entirety.

Are politics important or trivial, profound or superficial? Do they determine the whole course of our lives, or are they a thin veneer over the underlying constancies of human nature and inevitable exigencies of existence? I swing wildly, sometimes in the course of a single day, hour, or even minute, between these two poles of thought. Politics are everything, politics are nothing.