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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| The lust for power |
| 2009-04-14 |
| Shannon Love, Chicagoboyz.net While linking to a Megan McArdle comment on a childish Matthew Yglesias post on bankers, Instapundit asks a question that reveals a void in our language and world-models: “DOES GREED MAKE YOU A BAD PERSON? What about greed for power, a trait exhibited by many of those who denounce greed for money? Which is worse?” Why does Instapundit have to use the cumbersome phrase “greed for power” to describe a very common human behavior? Why do we have to describe the lust for power in terms of the lust for money? . . . What does it tell us that English and every other Western language have a single word to describe the destructive lust for money but that they lack a single word to describe the destructive lust for political power? After all, it is not as if we lack any experience with the destructive effects of the single-minded pursuit of power. From the very worst such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot down to some jackass on the city council, most of us have seen individuals cause real harm to others just to increase their own political power. Why then do we not have a word for such destructive behavior? I think the answer simple. Historically, people who lust for power will kill you quicker and more surely than will those who lust for money. . . . Go read it all. There's some good points in there, though I think he oversimplifies and pushes his argument a little too hard. He is right to point out that a lot of the people thundering righteously against "greed" are often guilty of a bit of a different greed themselves. One more point I think should be emphasized: . . . Communism and fascism both draw their moral authority from the idea that those who control the violent power of the state are inherently more virtuous than those who produce and trade. The Nazis in particular exploited the idea that the Jews, who had for centuries been the commercial specialists of Europe, were morally corrupt because they dealt with money and trade instead of being virtuous killers. (This is not to suggest that those who criticize greed are Nazis or communists but rather that both ideologies exploit a preexisting and unquestioned cultural narrative complete with its own historical iconography. ) |
| Posted by:Mike |