>This post is about word processors, but I got the idea for it from something W. H. Auden once said about political philosophers. In 1947, talking with his learned young secretary about an anthology he was compiling, The Portable Greek Reader, he mentioned Isocrates, a Greek orator whose simple-seeming ideas about relations between rich and poor cities were sane and practical. Naïve-sounding Isocrates had solved problems for which Plato’s grand theories had no answer. “Isocrates reminds me of John Dewey,” Auden said. “He’s a mediocrity who’s usually right whereas Plato is a man of genius who’s always wrong.” Only a genius could have devised Plato’s theory of the forms—the invisible, intangible “ideas” that give shape to every visible, tangible thing. But the theory of forms is always wrong when applied to political thinking, as every experiment in ideal, utopian politics has proved.

This reminds one of the "worse is better" notion.

Though, I would point that, just like with "worse is better", nothing of the short has been proved or "permanently settled".

It's a common cliche in american political thought to say that "every experiment in ideal, utopian politics" has failed etc, but the reality much more nuanced, and there's much ideology involved in the seemingly "non utopian" politics that's just transparent to their supporters.