THE sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world”, the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr said. While he made this as a general comment, I think it particularly applies to the public intellectual—meaning to those who with their writings and statements speak to the populace at large, setting forth what should and what should not be done for communal life.

Niehbuhr used the word “duty”, and I follow his usage. It is an odd word