Why governance stagnates in the Dark Ages
Only philosophers can be trusted with power, but only sociopaths move heaven and earth to obtain office
Misgovernment is the rule.
Enlighted government is the rare exception.
A glance at the internecine and international conflicts and misery that plague the world is proof enough.
John Adams lamented over two centuries ago, “While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a stand; little better understood; little better practiced than 3 or 4 thousand years ago.”
Nothing has changed since John Adams wrote. Governments and constitutions come and go but government corruption, oppression, waste, and lawlessness persist. Old wine in new bottles. The oppressed become oppressors at the first opportunity.
Henry Adams was not far off in observing, “Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.” Politics generally attracts sociopaths like honey attracts bees. Sociopaths crave power and attention for their own sakes. Their beliefs change like a restricted railroad ticket, good for this day and train only. Nothing dries faster than a politician’s tear.
Alice Roosevelt observed about President Theodore Roosevelt, “My father always wanted to to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding, and the baby at every Christening.” President Roosevelt reveled in war, the most grisly of enterprises. He believed that war, not moral or philosophical excellence, was the touchstone of greatness which he coveted. He maintained that, “if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.” Leo Tolstoy, among countless others, strongly disagreed. Lincoln exhibited signs of divinity before he entered office.
William Butler Yeats versified, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
Roman Emperors commonly entered office with benign intentions but soon turned vicious, corrupt, depraved, and licentious. Think of Caesar Augustus, Nero, and Caligula.
Philosophers, in contrast to politicians, seek influence through moral suasion, simpliciter, not though raw power, money, or fame. They would be trustworthy stewards of power, but they resist entering politics because their preoccupation is with mastering themselves, not others. Philosophers recognize their own fallibility, and thus shy from coercion through laws or edicts. Socrates did not covet office. His summum bonum was moral excellence, justice, and wisdom.
These truths about politicians and philosophers are self-evident to anyone who takes off blinders. But ascendent ideas reflect power, not vice versa. To disparage politicians generally as sociopaths in any society is blasphemy leading to ostracism or worse. Socrates was charged with impiety and corrupting the young and sentenced to death for exposing the moral and intellectual shallowness of Athens’ power elite. A second Socrates has yet to appear.
The science of government has stagnated from the beginning of time because the unflattering truths about the political class is too heavy a burden to bear. It is much easier to believe in the myth that godlike personalities will dispel all ills than to master the difficult art of dispersing and separating power so that sociopaths fight each other to a standstill and leave the people free to march to their own drummers.
Every election or new political face is celebrated as a glorious turning point in history, although the turning points never turn. The people, nevertheless, continue to believe the next time will be different, a triumph of hope over experience.
It is difficult to tell the political class to believe in something if their self-esteem and power depend on not believing it. That is why the science of government will forever dwell in the Dark Ages