John Rawls (1921–2002)

Abstract

Our scene is set on the London to Oxford bus, pulling out onto Buckingham Palace Road, where a gently mannered American, with large glasses and an open, friendly face, has been joined by a young man, who, among other things, really should cut his hair. The American has established that his travelling companion is an unreconstructed Marxist and that he has a throbbing bottom, courtesy of a slip, precipitated by him running for the bus. This, the American gentleman surmises, must account for the young man’s brusqueness. The young man, for his part, has discovered he is sitting next to a political philosopher spending some time at Oxford, which he finds inspiring, despite his colleagues’ tendency to fall asleep while he presents his work.¹ As we join the conversation, the American realizes why he recognizes the unpronounceable name of his fellow traveller’s home town.