Because he said it better than I can...

“I find this most astonishing in the writings of intellectuals; they plead their inability to steer the ship when the sea is calm, because they have never been taught or never cared to acquire such knowledge; and yet they proclaim that they will take the helm when the waves are at their highest! Those gentlemen openly admit, and indeed take great pride in the fact, that they have never learned and do not teach anything about how to set up or maintain a government; they think that expertise in such matters does not befit ‘learned and philosophical men’ and should be left to people with practical experience in that sort of thing. So what sense does it make to promise assistance to the government when driven to do so, when they cannot manage a much easier task, namely to administer government when there is no compelling crisis at hand? Even if it were true that the sage does not voluntarily deign to descend to the technicalities of statecraft, and yet does not shirk that duty if forced to by circumstances, I should still think it quite wrong of him to neglect the art of politics; he ought to have everything at his fingertips, for he never knows when he may have to use it. It is better for him to have the skills and never need them, rather than never to learn the skills, and be found wanting later.”

Cicero; “The Republic” Book 1, chapter 11.