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The Scholar and the Policy-Maker

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Allen S. Whiting
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Extract

Ever since Plato advocated his ideal of a philosopher-king, the intellectual has sought to guide the destinies of state. Sometimes he has been openly explicit in articulating advice, as with Machiavelli. More often, however, the intellectual has abjured so crass a role. Instead, he has sought to influence through private persuasion or has rendered counsel indirectly through scholarly essays. Only in China did the dichotomy between scholar and statesman disappear some two thousand years ago with emergence of a political system that monopolized bureaucratic control in the hands of the literati, that infinitesimally small proportion of the population that could master the classical adages which comprised the examinations for entrance into government. Elsewhere the sword proved to be mightier than the pen, at least in determining affairs of state.

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Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1972

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