TV Quote of the Day (‘To Play the King,’ on Power and Loyalty)

[Prime Minister Francis Urquhart has just asked pollster Sarah Harding to become his “slave”—i.e., a political adviser whose brain he can “plunder” when needed, at his constant beck and call.]

Sarah [played by Kitty Aldridge]: “I’m interested in looking at power close-up. I want to understand the way it works.”

Francis [played by Ian Richardson]: “You know how it works, Sarah. It tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Sarah [disturbed by what she’s just heard, but trying to shake it off]: “There’s no such thing as absolute power.”

Francis [slowly, with emphasis]: “If you work for me, you’ll give me your absolute allegiance.”— To Play the King (Part 2 of the BBC House of Cards trilogy), Episode 1, original air date Nov. 21, 1993, teleplay by Andrew Davies, based on the novel by Michael Dobbs, directed by Paul Seed

While going back to the original British House of Cards from the 1990s, I have been struck by similarities with events on this side of the Atlantic in the last several years: notably, the divisions between rich and poor, the creation of scapegoats for unrest, and the lengths to which leaders will go to secure the highest office in the land.

But, given the repeated news reports during this time of a leader who demands loyalty to him personally rather than to country, this particular exchange brought me up short.

Quote of the Day (Mark Twain, on What Constitutes a Disloyal Citizen)

"The citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth's political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor." – Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889)

Quote of the Day (Jean Bethke Elshtain, on Loyalty and God)

“To be loyal to some person, thing, idea, institution, or way of life is to define oneself. One cannot be a self without other selves around it. One requires the rough give-and-take of complex human lives. If, however, we lift our lives up to God, if we ask his forgiveness and place our weaknesses before him, we will not only come to know a peace we had not previously known; we will also be able to handle conflicts of loyalty in a spirit of good humor and fellowship.”-- Jean Bethke Elshtain, “On Loyalty,” First Things, August/September 2013

Ever since reading Jean Bethke Elshtain’s Democracy on Trial (1995), I have sought out work by this elegant and erudite public intellectual every chance I could. I read with dismay, then, the news of her death this past week at age 72.

Predictably, The New York Times went into automatic default mode in the first couple of paragraphs in its obituary of this University of Chicago political philosopher and ethicist, noting that she had become “an intellectual beacon for neoconservative policy makers in the post-9/11 era.” Later in the piece, the author, Paul Vitello, seems to have repented this stereotyping, noting that Dr. Elshtain “staked out positions across the political spectrum: insisting that society had a responsibility to help the poor and the vulnerable, questioning what she called the American cult of individualism, arguing that moral issues had a place in the political discussion and advocating all-out war on terrorists.”

Coming early in the culture wars that have proved so convulsive in the last two decades, Democracy on Trial has proven all the more relevant with each passing year. Its plea for civility has been sadly ignored by policymakers.

I knew about Dr. Elshtein’s moral astringency, but nothing about her courage until I read Princeton philosopher Robert George’s affectionate tribute, which recalled how she refused to let the limp she had developed (after contracting polio 60 years ago) dominate her life.

Two years ago, Dr. Elshtein converted to Roman Catholicism, the same faith as her longtime cultural hero, St. Augustine. May she rest in peace.