It Isn't the Corruption, It's the Chutzpah

Let us return to those thrilling days of yesteryear. A politician (or possibly, his minions), not wanting to lose an important election, enlists the help of relatives in a certain state government and of people otherwise beholden to him in a position to skew the election process. When even this is seen as insufficient, the election is closed before a clear result is obtained.

Had the whole thing been handled with a degree of subtlety, the screams of the populace may not have been heard throughout the land. It made no difference, of course, since there is no do-over process in that particular country, the people were stuck with a leader roughly half of them did not trust.

Coming up to more recent times, we see another leader getting obvious about holding on to even a limited level of power, and using the "close the count while we still have a head" tactic.

Lord Acton (John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton (1834–1902) to be precise) expressed the process in 1887:

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

Not particular original; William Pitt, the Elder, (British Prime Minister, 1766 - 1778), speaking to the House of Lords in 1770 said something similar:

"Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it"

From current film through Shakespeare, back to Aesculus, the same theme is propounded. But is it accurate?

With all their faults, political leaders are like the rest of us in at least one respect; they do not, at any time, rise in the morning, look into the mirror and say: "Today, I shall completely banjax the nation just for the fun of it." If asked for their favorite literary characters, villains (be it Iago or Ming The Merciless) seldom, if ever, appear.

Why is it we can't afford them the benefit of the doubt? In our own experience, there lies a collection of instances of "I managed to push the envelope to X point last time and got away with it, so I should be able to push it to X² this time." Are the powerful so much different? They play on a different field, granted, but the process seems to be the same.

Corruption may not be what's at work, so much as regression. If little Timmy got away with swiping a cookie from the jar yesterday, and got away with swiping two today, his emotions when getting caught with a handful may have more to do with being thwarted in an accepted action than any sense of wrongdoing or contrition.

One of those general observations that become axiomatic through being valid so often is the idea that there is a part of our emotional structure that never grows up. We are, as adults, much as we were in childhood. A little better controlled, possibly. A little better at rationalizing our behaviour. But those few people still alive whom I knew as children and/or adolescents are substantially the same people in times of stress.

One of the cats who run our lives at Angels Rest has the whole process down to a science. If she is purring, she should be able to do whatever she wants to do. If we let her do X today, she has every right to curse at us if we do not permit the same thing tomorrow. That which she does when we are not in the room eventually gets to the point where she doesn't check on our whereabouts. There may be more than a bit of that attitude in most of us, but in the rich and the powerful more than most.