To anybody who has been around for half a century or more, much of what passes for politics today is bound to seem intolerably trivial, ludicrously frivolous, culpably complacent. Serious public consideration of foreign policy has virtually ceased. When we Cold Warriors contemplate the present generation of leaders’ contemptible lack of courage and absence of principle in the face of far less formidable foes than those defeated by their predecessors, we cannot believe our eyes. Meanwhile, domestic politics often seems to have descended into the gutter, a squalid contest between greed and envy, dominated by naked appeals to the lowest common denominators of public opinion. The less trustworthy and statesmanlike our politicians and officials become, the more overweening their ambition to control every aspect of our lives. The malaise of political megalomania afflicts all three branches of government—legislature, executive, and judiciary—and is equally apparent, despite their contrasting constitutional differences, in both the United States and the United Kingdom. The term “hollowing out” accurately conveys the reductio ad absurdumof institutions that once commanded our unconditional allegiance. But I prefer a different term to indicate the moral collapse that has drained the authority of our political systems. The phrase I shall use: dereliction of duty. Duty is an unfashionable concept; yet without a devotion not only to the obligations it entails, but to the sense of vocation that it implies, our societies cannot function. Unless imbued with a sense of duty by those responsible for our respective commonwealths, the