Do psychiatrists still use word-association techniques with their patients? I sometimes do word association with my students, usually on the first day of my introductory American government classes at Rhodes College. The first word I say is “politics,” and here is what they come back with: corrupt, dirty, games-playing, ego trip, a waste. (The nicest thing I heard the last time I did this was “boring”.) Here is what they say in response to “politician”: selfish, ambitious, mediocre, unprincipled.

The teacher in me wants to despair when students associate words like these with politics. I know, as did Aristotle, that politics is a vital and sometimes noble human activity. I know that politics was at the heart of our birth as a nation. (As John Roche [1961] has pointed out, the founding fathers may be described in many ways, but no description is accurate that leaves out the word “politician.”) I know that politics was the vehicle that integrated generations of our immigrant ancestors into the mainstream of American society—the job on the city road crew that my German grandfather got from the Frank Hague machine in Jersey City is the reason that my father and then I were later able to build careers of our own in the private sector. And I know that it is politics that secures the basic freedoms that allow my students to say critical things about politics.