By David Warren.

Perhaps it is a failure of diplomacy on my side, but my approach to most contemporary political controversies could be summed up in the statement, "You're nuts!

This expression implies there will be no point in continuing the discussion. After all, the opponent is unlikely to acknowledge that he is mentally ill - even when I have allowed that everyone, including myself, is rather titched these days.

It is in fact the condition of political debate currently. No matter what issue we start with, we soon find ourselves arguing everything that has ever been raised in politics; and of course, we are not well informed on everything that was ever raised.

Politics takes priority in our most specialized political discussions. Religion, for instance - whether Christian, Jewish, Islamic, or Other - has shrunk to an obscure corner of the controversial map.

Wealth and open materialism are displayed, but thanks to socialism they are politicized by both left and right.

Professional sports may rise briefly out of the obscurity, and I have witnessed moments when a joke is so widely understood, that everyone sentient is laughing. These are moments of relief from the condition to which we are enchained - even with the people we agree with.

I wonder if monastic life is much different, today, when I discover that almost every monk or nun can be reached by email.

Some, very disciplined, have apparently learnt the "art of shutting up," at least on matters that are none of their business; for in an extra-religious way they realize that almost nothing is anyone's business.

Verily, I think of an old Jewish friend, whom I couldn't be sure was a friend, even when playing chess with him. It was not that he was silent, though he was mostly so; but that he did not seem to have any demonstrative opinions. Street directions were the most one could get from him, and the occasional mysterious quotation from Maimonides, or the Mishnah, as he moved his Rook into place. Or perhaps it was Kafka.

My admiration for this "Eric the Blest" (as I called him in parody of his given name) was for his instinct of self-preservation, in the highest conceivable sense. Whether or not he was physically threatened (and Jews often are), he never strayed from what he believed to be unqualified truth.

This I inferred. Eric would not declare such a thing. I think he would assume that, as it were, all declarations are false.

Faith, too, I would say, is not a declaration. It comes prior to any verbal formula, although perhaps words have contributed to it. In this sense, faith is quite different from reason, which can usually be expressed; sometimes, even mathematically.

But to return neurotically to politics, an opinion can be based on reason, or rather employ it in some way, but without becoming reasonable itself. One must leap into the ether, for faith must also be consulted.

There are, as Christ shewed in words and action, no glib certainties here, where the sun is not always visibly shining. What we see, we see only for a moment, and then it is covered by night. What we describe can remain apparent only momentarily.

Yet the odd thing, to those who think it odd, is that truth can only be a function of freedom, and freedom only a function of the truth, in our twilight world. Every attempt to compel our views is a betrayal of truth and freedom, both. It is a small declaration of war against sanctity; or a large one.

It was for this reason, I think, that Eric restricted himself, at most, to droll observations; and to a drollery that was soft. For he was not trying to be witty, either. Instead, only to be polite when asked for a comment.

A world consisting exclusively of Erics might not be intelligible to most of the characters this world contains, and yet there is something recognizably "Ericsome" in all our better moments.

Curiously these happen when we are looking for truth, in a small or big way; though as I think Maimonides said, there is no such thing as a small...