`A Boundless and Bottomless Sea'

Today we leave for Annapolis, Md., where our son Michael will enter the United States Naval Academy on Thursday, I-Day (Induction Day). I may have little access to the internet, so I’ve prepared a week’s worth of posts on matters naval, maritime and oceanic. The first is a witty extended metaphor from Michael Oakeshott’s essay “Political Education” (Rationalism in Politics, 1962):

“In political activity, then, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea; there is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place nor appointed destination. The enterprise is to keep afloat on an even keel; the sea is both friend and enemy; and the seamanship consists in using the resources of a traditional manner of behavior in order to make a friend of every hostile occasion.”