Posted on 02/07/2024 7:33:24 AM PST by Twotone
In most places around the country, the point of acquiring power is to do something with it. Your state’s legislators pass a corporate tax cut to attract new business. Or, your mayor deploys city funds to repair streets damaged by winter’s snow and ice, paving the way for a smooth commute.
But D.C. is different.
More than other places, in D.C., the best use of power is not to discharge it toward solving some real or concrete problem that exists in the world, but to use power to create even more power. Whether that’s a better committee assignment, a bigger office, deeper donor pool, or a bigger professional network, there’s an urgency to spend what you have in furtherance of your ambition for more, to apply all of one’s tools in a strategy that (swiftly) generates more and greater power.
It’s a unique environment, and one in which military historian Eliot Cohen has thrived for more than 30 years. He’s advised presidents, cabinet secretaries, generals and diplomats. “In government and out,” writes David Petraeus, “Eliot Cohen has consistently been one of the shrewdest observers of the exercise of power.” In his new book The Hollow Crown, Cohen finds in Shakespeare the characters and stories that illustrate what he has learned about the ebb and flow of power in the real world, and it’s on this theme that we pick up our conversation. I talked with the author about military leadership, Coriolanus, and the Henry plays in part one of our conversation, which you can find here. Now, on to part two …
What is the state of “power” in 2024?
Power is more diffuse today than in previous periods of history.
As a group, elites don’t have the same voice as they once did because the number of elites has expanded, so you don’t have groups that have a high level of authority. For example, you once had senior clerics in this country who had a profound moral voice. I grew up in Boston and I’m Jewish but if Cardinal Richard Cushing said something, then people would really pay attention. Presidents of the great university played a role in our national debate that they do not play right now. Because power has gotten very diffuse, it’s sometimes in the hands of people who are irresponsible. Look at Congress. Our committee chairs are not powerful anymore. The Speaker of the House once was powerful. We’ve watched several of them get defenestrated. The elites lost their moral authority and there is no coherent leadership group rising in its place.
What concerns you about the state of politics in our country?
I am concerned that power is being separated from character. What one hears in Washington, DC is that someone is “smart.” That’s the least important thing to have in a leader. It’s very easy to rent smart or hire smart people—it’s much harder to find people with good judgment and good character. I don’t think we’re living in a world that cares about honesty, loyalty, consistency, willingness to sacrifice or give of themselves. And, on the judgment side, do our leaders have an ability to understand enough what is happening to decide what ought to be done? The absence of that quality is how you get into trouble. I make reference in the book to George Washington, who was far from being the smartest but had the strongest character and best judgment. As a counter-example, Richard II was a brilliant talker … and he’s the last guy on earth you want running something.
But Machiavelli separated politics from ethics some 500 years ago, and so I wonder if this phenomenon you observe of an absence of character in politics is really that new at all …
Yes, but first, we don’t have to accept that Machiavelli was necessarily right! Also, Machiavelli had his own conception of virtue, or virtú, that is very different from ours, but still involved some qualities of character that we don’t have much of.
What is Shakespeare’s first lesson on power?
I take away from Shakespeare that all power is dangerous. It’s dangerous when you inherit it because you may not be suited to its exercise. I mention Jack Welch and Jeffrey Immelt, how that plan for succession at General Electric didn’t work out despite all of Welch’s great processes for identifying high performing executives, something he devoted himself to for some 20 years. Acquiring power by manipulation means you’re dealing people at the top who are very slippery. Go to the Federalist Papers. The genius of the American Constitution is that ambition will counter ambition—it’s not set up for a constant flow of brilliant statesmen. I was just in Israel with a delegation of national security people and was in a discussion with an old friend, and this person was saying all we need are honest judges and good people in charge. I disagree. You simply cannot count on those people always being there …
Michael Ledeen said the best government is a good czar. The worst government is a bad czar. There are more bad czars than good czars, so democracy becomes a very good alternative.
Yes, sooner or later, you’re going to end up with bad people in those positions and the system must carry on anyway. I had a professor who was a refugee from Europe during World War II. She said there are two reasons to study political science: either you’re fascinated by power or you’re afraid of power. “You Americans, you’re fascinated by it. I’m afraid of it.”
Shakespeare filled his plays with Machiavellian archetypes, people like Lady Macbeth and Iago who ultimately fail to control the outcomes of their schemes for power. What did Shakespeare think of Machiavelli?
He certainly knew about him, because Richard III, before he becomes king, makes reference to him. But his picture of human beings is far more subtle and nuanced than Machiavelli’s. Lady Macbeth, for example, is consumed with guilt and eventually goes mad; Iago arranges the ruin of Othello for no particular purpose, because he can never replace him. These are not Machiavellian characters like, for example, Cesare Borgia.
You note that Machiavelli believed there’s more “virtú” in a Republic because you have so many people striving. We’re in an election year. Politicians across the country will scheme, deceive and strive in hopes of acquiring power. We should see this “virtú” in abundance. What do you suppose Machiavelli would think about our politics in 2024?
I suspect that he would think that we are a pretty pathetic lot. A lot of politicians whine, a lot of them are cowardly, a lot fear their own followers. Whatever that is, it’s not virtú.
Let’s end with a few brief questions.
Okay.
Which Shakespeare play has become too popular?
Macbeth. Macbeth and Richard III are my favorites but, if there’s someone you don’t like, then you say they’re like Macbeth or Richard. Both are wonderful plays but they are overdone.
Which Shakespeare play should be more popular?
The Henry VI plays should be read much more widely, all three of the Henry VI plays. There is no strong king or strong leadership. There’s a bunch of squabbling courtiers and politicians. Some people are villainous, others are naïve and both come to bad ends. You have demagogues interested in turning things upside down but don’t have an idea of what they want to accomplish. It’s something worth thinking about.
Finally, who is your favorite character from Shakespeare?
Prospero. He’s a flawed human being. He was oblivious as to how he was overthrown. In the first parts of The Tempest, he could be cruel. He has a short fuse and could be arbitrary and is tempted to be vengeful, but at the end he makes a decision to renounce his power. He becomes human because he can walk away from power without illusions. He knows he’s coming to the end but he can relinquish it. He uses power well but also knows he’s got to give it up if he wants to be a normal human being, and that’s a very rare thing.
The point is that power is kind of an elusive thing. You can keep it only so long as you are using it to benefit the people who gave you the power. Fail that and you lose. Do that and you may lose anyways as concerns shift to things you can't do.
So a self-absorbed game to keep power and keep it for your ingroup is doomed to failure if that is all you do. You are just creating your own vacuum of irrelevancy to fill.
To wit the utter down-deafness of the power elite to the border/immigration crisis and denial that it is even a problem. THEY created their own irrelevancy.
Hey! Who gave that fella permission to talk?
No. These positions are still powerful. Look at Manchurian Mitch and his strangle hold on his office. As I stated above, the problem is that they are using their power to get and keep power, in abject ignorance and recognition of any problem that concerns the People from whom you get power by whatever licit or ilicit mechanism that happens.
“doomed to failure”
The theme of the power elite, and their deep state cabal.
The author kind of geets it. This is spot on. You are a servant of the people, but you are afraid of the people because what you want to do is not what they wnat you to do. So you are a RINO who tries to survive by dissing MAGA voters who are the committed half of the GOP electorate.
Our politicians are weak, corrupt, craven. Worse they are insane. They refuse to do what they obviously need to do to keep their voters pacified. Not securing the border is not palmed off in the same way as too many potholes and erratic garbage collection - though mayors have lost office for this last thing.
Manchurian Mitch- I like that.
He needs to go. Both him and Schumer.
Good post. I copied it off for later re-reading.
I’m still working my way through James Burnham’s 1943 appreciation of Machiavelli and others who wrote on the mechanics of power; Dante, Mosca, Sorel, Michels and Pareto. One thing that won’t leave me from the Machiavelli chapter is that all politicians are in it for the power, and the only remedy is death. They can’t help themselves.
Party politics rewards the most slippery, backstabbing, low character people. We need to get rid of party politics. While everyone has the right to free association we don’t have to allow party affiliation to appear on ballots and we don’t have to allow party primaries in the states. Just have an election, put everyone who wants the job on the ballot and let them campaign on their ideas.
We could also limit how much money can be spent on a campaign and maybe even eliminate most forms of campaign advertising. Just a platform to express their views and positions.
After the title it was all cotton candy.
WW I and WW II was fought to save the British Empire. After the war we dismantled the Empire and replaced it with the economic US Dollar Empire. We were the new empire that ruled much of the world for decades. We became the “Ugly Americans” as bad as England in her prime. At least UK was honest and called it the “White Man’s Burden” and used Christian ideals. When Natives revolted—they used machine guns and poison gas to stop them. Now we rule but the house of cards is toppling.
Because we couldn't adequately defend both oceans, when we expanded in the Pacific, after The Spanish-American War. So we needed the Royal Navy to help us protect the Atlantic.
"More than other places, in D.C., the best use of power is not to discharge it toward solving some real or concrete problem that exists in the world, but to use power to create even more power [??? emphasis added]."
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
Regarding "use power to create even more power" mentioned in the referenced article, not only is the Constitution's Article V suspiciously not mentioned in the article, but "federal government overreach" probably should have been used instead of saying "use power to create even more power" imo.
Note that federal government overreach was identified as early as the early 1800's, evidenced by the following statement by St. George Tucker, a respected constitutional expert in those days.
"If it were, in fact, an unconstitutional exercise of power in congress to pass a law establishing the bank, nothing can manifest the impropriety of over-stepping the limits of the constitution, more than the act which we have just noticed. It shows that the most unauthorised acts of government may be drawn into precedents to justify other unwarrantable usurpations [emphasis added]." —Article 1, Section 8, Clause 6, St. George Tucker, Blackstone's Commentaries 1:App. 262--64, 1803.
”The system of the General Government is to seize all doubtful ground. We must join in the scramble, or get nothing. Where first occupancy is to give right, he who lies still loses all.” —Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1797.
”I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” —James Madison, Speech at the Virginia Convention to ratify the Federal Constitution (1788-06-06)
”To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.” —Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson's Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank : 1791
"From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added]." —United States v. Butler, 1936.
Based on St. George Tucker's statement above, it appears the early U.S. legal system was getting English common law mixed up with constitutional law, the legal system inadvertently using common law as a way of bypassing Article V's rules for expanding the federal government's limited powers.
Been worshiping in the universal church of Howard Zinn, have you?
Yes, politicians "are in it for the power" -- after all that is the nature of public office -- but the issue then becomes, is a particular politician seduced by power and focused on career, ego, and venal gains, or do they genuinely want to use power to do their job and accomplish one or more worthy objectives that they are open and clear about? I have seen and known both types, with most politicians being a changeable mixture.
Some years ago, on a controversial good government type civic issue, at a key moment, my brother and I recruited a Machiavellian type climber as an ally for a time because he saw the advantage in helping us. Yet we had no illusions about the rottenness of politics so we went to war against those on the other side using valid legal and ethics issues.
We ended several political careers and damaged others that way, enough so as to get a reputation. Eventually, no one wanted to be an advocate for the other side and we won a complete victory against the local and state political establishments. My brother and I still laugh about chasing down a powerful GOP legislator in the state capitol building during session. We trapped him like two cats running down a rodent for fun and made him squirm over the obvious lies he was telling on our issue.
Apex nations become intoxicated with power.
It’s not permanent.
It certainly is. The translations from Machiavelli's Italian are especially difficult. I sometimes spend 2-3 minutes trying to parse one of those long, long sentences. And occasionally replacing a translator's word with one that makes a clause make sense to this 21sr century reader. Still, it's worth it.
For them as don't know, Machiavelli is the founding father of political science, and The Prince is an observation of reality, not an instruction manual as so many believe.
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