I'm reading Robert Stone's memoir of the sixties (it's really good), and I came across this about politics...
"I had always been interested in politics. Belief fascinated me, because of my own experience of lost faith. But somehow, as I lived along with the century, the more interested in politics I became, the further I moved from accepting any kind of transforming ideology as an answer to my fundamental questions. I was never able to advance (if that's the word) beyond the old boring liberalism of the two-cheers-for democracy sort. Like most people, I never trusted anyone who offered a formula that transcended the instincts of ordinary decency. Ordinary decency, I thought, was about the best of which I, and again most people, were capable. And it was not so easy at that, not so ordinary." - R. Stone, Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties.