Politics: The Means to a Purpose-Driven Life?

Ryan T. Anderson February 1, 2008

From David Brooks’ New York Times column today:

Obama is the one insistently calling on audiences to serve a cause greater than self-interest. He’s the one transcending partisanship and telling young people that politics can be the means to a meaningful, purpose-driven life.

Regardless of whether Brooks has gotten Obama right (how, exactly, is he transcending partisanship?), somehow I don’t think politics was what Rick Warren had in mind . . .

Ryan T. Anderson

Ryan Anderson is president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His most recent book is Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing.

MORE BY THE AUTHOR

Trump’s IVF Policy Could Be Worse, But It’s Still Bad

The Way Forward After Dobbs

Of Roots and Adventures

Peter J. Leithart

I have lived in Ohio, Michigan, Georgia (twice), Pennsylvania, Alabama (also twice), England, and Idaho. I left…

Our Most Popular Articles of 2025

The Editors

It’s been a big year for First Things. Our website was completely redesigned, and stories like the…

Our Year in Film & Television—2025

Various

First Things editors and writers share the most memorable films and TV shows they watched this year.…

Cookie	Duration	Description
__cf_bm	1 hour	This cookie, set by Cloudflare, is used to support Cloudflare Bot Management.
__stripe_mid	1 year	Stripe sets this cookie to set a unique session identifier to recognize users across sessions.
__stripe_sid	1 hour	Stripe sets this cookie to set a unique session identifier for a single session.
_cfuvid	session	Calendly sets this cookie to track users across sessions to optimize user experience by maintaining session consistency and providing personalized services
_shopify_country	1 hour	Shopify sets this cookie to store the preferred country setting chosen by the visitor.
_tracking_consent	1 year	Shopify sets this cookie to store a user's preferences if a merchant has set up privacy rules in the visitor's region.
ak_bmsc	2 hours	This cookie is used by Akamai to optimize site security by distinguishing between humans and bots
AWSALBCORS	7 days	Amazon Web Services set this cookie for load balancing.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement	1 year	Set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin, this cookie records the user consent for the cookies in the "Advertisement" category.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
CookieLawInfoConsent	1 year	CookieYes sets this cookie to record the default button state of the corresponding category and the status of CCPA. It works only in coordination with the primary cookie.
cookiesession1	1 year	This cookie is set by the Fortinet firewall. This cookie is used for protecting the website from abuse.
crumb	session	Squarespace sets this cookie to prevent cross-site request forgery (CSRF).
issuem_lp	28 days	The cookie is set by Leaky Paywall plugin to track restricted content based on the subscription levels.
keep_alive	1 hour	The keep_alive cookie is used to maintain a user's session active on a website, preventing automatic logout during periods of inactivity.
lp_us_his	30 days	The cookie is set by Leaky Paywall plugin to track restricted content based on the subscription levels.
m	1 year 1 month 4 days	Stripe sets this cookie for fraud prevention purposes. It identifies the device used to access the website, allowing the website to be formatted accordingly.
ts	1 year	PayPal sets this cookie to mitigate risks and ensure transaction integrity.
ts_c	1 year	PayPal sets this cookie to ensure the security of transactions and verify user authentication.
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
XSRF-TOKEN	session	This cookie enhances visitor browsing security by preventing cross-site request forgery.

Cookie	Duration	Description
pu-cookie-encrypted	session	Popup Maker plugin sets this cookie to enable the website to display a popup on the website. The cookies also serve the purpose of preventing the same popup being shown to the users repetitively.
pum_alm_first_activity	1 day	Popup Maker plugin sets this cookie to enable the website to display a popup on the website. The cookies also serve the purpose of preventing the same popup being shown to the users repetitively.
pum_alm_last_activity	1 day	Popup Maker plugin sets this cookie to enable the website to display a popup on the website. The cookies also serve the purpose of preventing the same popup being shown to the users repetitively.
pum_alm_pages_viewed	3 months	Popup Maker plugin sets this cookie to enable the website to display a popup on the website. The cookies also serve the purpose of preventing the same popup being shown to the users repetitively.
sp_landing	1 day	The sp_landing is set by Spotify to implement audio content from Spotify on the website and also registers information on user interaction related to the audio content.
sp_t	1 year	The sp_t cookie is set by Spotify to implement audio content from Spotify on the website and also registers information on user interaction related to the audio content.
yt-remote-cast-available	session	The yt-remote-cast-available cookie is used to store the user's preferences regarding whether casting is available on their YouTube video player.
yt-remote-cast-installed	session	The yt-remote-cast-installed cookie is used to store the user's video player preferences using embedded YouTube video.
yt-remote-connected-devices	never	YouTube sets this cookie to store the user's video preferences using embedded YouTube videos.
yt-remote-device-id	never	YouTube sets this cookie to store the user's video preferences using embedded YouTube videos.
yt-remote-fast-check-period	session	The yt-remote-fast-check-period cookie is used by YouTube to store the user's video player preferences for embedded YouTube videos.
yt-remote-session-app	session	The yt-remote-session-app cookie is used by YouTube to store user preferences and information about the interface of the embedded YouTube video player.
yt-remote-session-name	session	The yt-remote-session-name cookie is used by YouTube to store the user's video player preferences using embedded YouTube video.
ytidb::LAST_RESULT_ENTRY_KEY	never	The cookie ytidb::LAST_RESULT_ENTRY_KEY is used by YouTube to store the last search result entry that was clicked by the user. This information is used to improve the user experience by providing more relevant search results in the future.

Cookie	Duration	Description
AWSALB	7 days	AWSALB is an application load balancer cookie set by Amazon Web Services to map the session to the target.
loglevel	never	Squarespace sets this cookie to maintain settings and outputs when using the Developer Tools Console on the current session.

Cookie	Duration	Description
_ga	1 year 1 month 4 days	Google Analytics sets this cookie to calculate visitor, session and campaign data and track site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognise unique visitors.
_ga_*	1 year 1 month 4 days	Google Analytics sets this cookie to store and count page views.
_landing_page	14 days	Shopify installs this cookie to track landing pages.
_orig_referrer	14 days	Shopify sets this cookie to be used in connection with shopping cart.
_scribd_session	3 years	Scribd sets this cookie to implement audio-files on the website and determines how many and who have listened to these files.
_shopify_s	1 hour	This cookie is associated with Shopify's analytics suite.
_shopify_y	1 year	This cookie is associated with Shopify's analytics suite.
vuid	1 year 1 month 4 days	Vimeo installs this cookie to collect tracking information by setting a unique ID to embed videos on the website.

Cookie	Duration	Description
NID	6 months	Google sets the cookie for advertising purposes; to limit the number of times the user sees an ad, to unwanted mute ads, and to measure the effectiveness of ads.
scribd_ubtc	1 year 1 month 4 days	Scribd sets this cookie to gather data on user behaviour across several websites and maximise the relevancy of the advertisements on the website.
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE	6 months	YouTube sets this cookie to measure bandwidth, determining whether the user gets the new or old player interface.
VISITOR_PRIVACY_METADATA	6 months	YouTube sets this cookie to store the user's cookie consent state for the current domain.
YSC	session	Youtube sets this cookie to track the views of embedded videos on Youtube pages.
yt.innertube::nextId	never	YouTube sets this cookie to register a unique ID to store data on what videos from YouTube the user has seen.
yt.innertube::requests	never	YouTube sets this cookie to register a unique ID to store data on what videos from YouTube the user has seen.

Cookie	Duration	Description
__cflb	1 hour	This cookie is used by Cloudflare for load balancing.
__Secure-ROLLOUT_TOKEN	6 months	Description is currently not available.
__tad	10 years	No description available.
atl_uuid	12 years 7 months 22 days 10 hours	Description is currently not available.
atltestbucketv1	session	Description is currently not available.
blaize_session	session	No description available.
blaize_tracking_id	session	No description available.
cp_sessionid	1 year 1 month 4 days	Description is currently not available.
guest	1 month	No description available.
is_gdpr	session	No description available.
kppid	session	No description available.
techno	5 minutes	Description is currently not available.
userReferer	1 month	No description available.
WMF-Uniq	1 year	Description is currently not available.

Politics: The Means to a Purpose-Driven Life?

Ryan T. Anderson

Trump’s IVF Policy Could Be Worse, But It’s Still Bad

The Way Forward After Dobbs

The Way Forward After Dobbs

Of America’s Most Influential Publication of Religion and Public Life

Of Roots and Adventures

Our Most Popular Articles of 2025

Our Year in Film & Television—2025