The guilt of the liberal causes him to feel obligated to try to do something about any and every social problem, to cure every social evil ... even if he has no knowledge of the suitable medicine or, for that matter, of the nature of the disease; he must do something about the social problem even when there is no objective reason to believe that what he does can solve the problem - when, in fact, it may well aggravate the problem instead of solving it. 'We cannot stand idly by while the world rushes to destruction ... or women and children are starving ... or able men walk the streets without jobs ...' or whatever. The harassed liberal is relentlessly driven by his Eumenidean guilt. It does not permit to 'let well enough alone' or... decide that the trouble is 'none of his business'; or to reflect that, though the evil is undoubtedly there and he feels sincerely sorry for its victims, he doesn't understand damn-all about it and if he did he hasn't got the brains and resources to fix it up.
~~James Burnham. Suicide of the West. (1964)
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