IV. The Politics of Self-Disclosure

LKN HIS PREFACE MICHAEL OAKESHOTT REMARKS that On Human Conduct contains the fundamental themes which been with me nearly as long as I can remember (p. vii). Many of them will be familiar to his readers: the controlling preoccupation with the practices and language of civility; the affection for traditional usages; skepticism about salvific politics and theories; and an abiding concern with preventing the dissociation of political theory from an aesthetic sensibility toward nuance and contingency. Notwithstanding these continuities, On Human Conduct occupies a unique place in the corpus of Oakeshott's work. For the first time he has presented us with his comprehensive and general theory. It covers politics and political forms; membership and rulership; the historical origins and development of the modern state; and the constitutive ideas and ideals that have helped to form that state and its present predicaments. In the past some of Oakeshott's most devoted readers may have come away from his essays with some slight feeling of disappointment that their author had refrained from expressing his full vision of politics. On Human Conduct gives us that vision as well as a glimpse of the political passions which are its moving force. In saying this I do not mean to extend either the kdnd of half-embarrassed compliment for which Plato's students may

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