“This is an election year, and it seems appropriate therefore to talk politics. But politics in its full sense goes far beyond primaries or even general elections. The root of the word politics is polis—the Greek word for the city, or City State. A politician in ancient times was supposed to serve the City ... That is the kind of politics we need now—the politics of service.”
Our Quote of the Week gets us thinking about the nature of politics. As many states begin voting in primaries in preparation for the November mid-terms, we are watching for candidates who are committed to the politics of service.
In his speech to the New York University Class of 1964, Sargent Shriver remarks on the political lives of Ghandi, Martin Luther King, and the many Peace Corps Volunteers whom he himself led and inspired. What is notable about their examples, Shriver says, is the way in which their values are expressed. Their political actions are always in service to others.
Shriver also makes reference to the War on Poverty, whose programs, at the time of the speech, were still under development. Nevertheless, Shriver makes a full-throated appeal to his young audience about the opportunities to serve that the programs would bring:
“President Johnson has declared War on Poverty. Congress, we trust, will soon give us the ammunition. But the people who are going to wage this war are not in Washington. They are already living on the front lines of poverty—right in the centers of our cities. It is here at N.Y.U., at your campus on Washington Square, in that most cosmopolitan neighborhood of the greatest city the world has ever known, that the war has to be waged. But to win this war on the home front we shall require the help of this most cosmopolitan University. You must recognize your place on the front lines and give us the home front leadership and action we need. I call upon the faculty and student body of New York University to practice the politics of service here at home in your own neighborhood. Not by more courses in responsibility or in American social problems. Not by lectures. Not by commencement talks. But by political action in this true sense of politics, in service of your city.”
As we cast our votes throughout this election year, may we seek out leaders who embody the politics of service. And may we be inspired to practice the politics of service ourselves, in whatever way is useful for our communities.
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