Power, politics, and Game of Thrones: Vox annoys me sometimes
A few weeks ago, I wrote this little think-piece on power and the importance of checks-and-balances. Short version: anyone seeking power is not to be trusted, that's why checks-and-balances are so important, and that's why their disappearance matters so much. (I also referenced Baru Cormorant, which I'll be bashing soon.)
This past week, though, I came across this piece by Emily Todd VanDerWerff at Vox about power and Game of Thrones. VanDerWerff's argument is extremely sloppy. Politics and "genre" over at a "serious" news site! That's my bat-signal! (Or, something less cool and less copyrighted.)
VanDerWerff claims that the television conclusion of Game of Thrones built towards the following thesis. Daenerys Targaryen wanted power. That desire for power corrupted her. The people who should have power are those who don't want power-- shades of the argument in my post from November 30-- as expressed by Tyrion Lannister. Otherwise, you wind up with corrupt people in power.
And here's where VanDerWerff's argument goes off the rails. She claims that the thesis of the show is, therefore, that to want a thing is inherently corrupting. Got that? If you want something, that desire is corrupting.
That's a very Buddhist thesis, but it is a leap of logic far beyond Tyrion's claim. OK, so Emily probably shouldn't convert to Buddhism, is what I'm getting here. Not that I'd proselytize for Buddhism, not being a Buddhist, myself, but my point is that VanDerWerff 's interpretation is a stretch far beyond anything Tyrion said.
Try this. I enjoy listening to John Coltrane play saxophone. Does it follow that I enjoy all people playing saxophone? Or all people playing horns? No. Of course not. That's the same kind of leap of logic in VanDerWerff's extrapolation from Tyrion's thesis.
The old aphorism goes as follows: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Lord Acton. However, the argument I made in my earlier post was not merely that power corrupts, but that the desire for power is corrupt. Not the desire to listen to jazz, the desire to read a good book, the desire to eat a nicely cooked but simple meal... These are simple desires, and one needs little to fulfill them. That final category can be a little more costly, particularly if you don't know how to cook, but a life of simple pleasures doesn't really cost that much. Many desires are not corrupt. I am listing but a few.
Power, though? My claim-- fundamentally no different from Tyrion's, if more elaborate as a blog post-- was not merely that having power corrupts you. My claim was that the desire for power is, itself, the problem. I put it in the same form as the "qualms," from Seth Dickinson's Baru Cormorant novels. Buchler's Qualm:
Basically, if the thing that you want is to be in a position in which you can impose your will on others, it isn't the wanting that makes me say that you're corrupt. It is the very specific thing that you want.
VanDerWerff completely misses this distinction, in order to argue that Tyrion says, as the voice of the show, that it is wanting-- generalized wanting-- that is corrupting. I've gone and watched that speech from Tyrion, and that's not at all what he said, and unless you want to make the case that the thesis of the show is that we should all convert to ascetic Buddhism, I don't think that's the (or even a) thesis of the show. With the caveat that I was not a, shall we say, religious viewer of the show, and I read the first three books when they originally came out, but got so annoyed with A Feast For Crows that I put it down half way through, and never picked the books up again.
As I see it, though, Tyrion's thesis and mine match rather closely. He just went a different direction. In my November 30 post, the implication I took from Buchler's Qualm was that checks-and-balances are vital. Tyrion's solution? Draft someone who doesn't seek power. I simply don't see that as viable. Checks and balances have, in the past, worked. The reason I keep telling you that we are in such trouble is that they are gone from the US political system. Checks and balances are the resolution to Buchler's Qualm. With them gone, we're kind of screwed.
Feel free to call me a James Madison fanboy.
This past week, though, I came across this piece by Emily Todd VanDerWerff at Vox about power and Game of Thrones. VanDerWerff's argument is extremely sloppy. Politics and "genre" over at a "serious" news site! That's my bat-signal! (Or, something less cool and less copyrighted.)
VanDerWerff claims that the television conclusion of Game of Thrones built towards the following thesis. Daenerys Targaryen wanted power. That desire for power corrupted her. The people who should have power are those who don't want power-- shades of the argument in my post from November 30-- as expressed by Tyrion Lannister. Otherwise, you wind up with corrupt people in power.
And here's where VanDerWerff's argument goes off the rails. She claims that the thesis of the show is, therefore, that to want a thing is inherently corrupting. Got that? If you want something, that desire is corrupting.
That's a very Buddhist thesis, but it is a leap of logic far beyond Tyrion's claim. OK, so Emily probably shouldn't convert to Buddhism, is what I'm getting here. Not that I'd proselytize for Buddhism, not being a Buddhist, myself, but my point is that VanDerWerff 's interpretation is a stretch far beyond anything Tyrion said.
Try this. I enjoy listening to John Coltrane play saxophone. Does it follow that I enjoy all people playing saxophone? Or all people playing horns? No. Of course not. That's the same kind of leap of logic in VanDerWerff's extrapolation from Tyrion's thesis.
The old aphorism goes as follows: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Lord Acton. However, the argument I made in my earlier post was not merely that power corrupts, but that the desire for power is corrupt. Not the desire to listen to jazz, the desire to read a good book, the desire to eat a nicely cooked but simple meal... These are simple desires, and one needs little to fulfill them. That final category can be a little more costly, particularly if you don't know how to cook, but a life of simple pleasures doesn't really cost that much. Many desires are not corrupt. I am listing but a few.
Power, though? My claim-- fundamentally no different from Tyrion's, if more elaborate as a blog post-- was not merely that having power corrupts you. My claim was that the desire for power is, itself, the problem. I put it in the same form as the "qualms," from Seth Dickinson's Baru Cormorant novels. Buchler's Qualm:
Anyone who wants power shouldn't have it. Power means power over others. The desire for power is an ambition. The ambition for that power is the ambition to control others. Anyone who wants that power, then, wants it to control others, which is evil. So, anyone seeking power is evil, and should be prevented from acquiring it.There is a logical structure to "Buchler's Qualm," and it is based on a highly individualistic moral philosophy. (The previous blog I wrote was called "The Unmutual Political Blog," in reference to The Prisoner. Go figure.) The structure of the Qualm falls apart for any "desire" that isn't linked to an intrinsic evil. The Qualm works with respect to "power" because of the connection, "power means power over others," as long as one accepts the individualistic moral premise of the Qualm.
Basically, if the thing that you want is to be in a position in which you can impose your will on others, it isn't the wanting that makes me say that you're corrupt. It is the very specific thing that you want.
VanDerWerff completely misses this distinction, in order to argue that Tyrion says, as the voice of the show, that it is wanting-- generalized wanting-- that is corrupting. I've gone and watched that speech from Tyrion, and that's not at all what he said, and unless you want to make the case that the thesis of the show is that we should all convert to ascetic Buddhism, I don't think that's the (or even a) thesis of the show. With the caveat that I was not a, shall we say, religious viewer of the show, and I read the first three books when they originally came out, but got so annoyed with A Feast For Crows that I put it down half way through, and never picked the books up again.
As I see it, though, Tyrion's thesis and mine match rather closely. He just went a different direction. In my November 30 post, the implication I took from Buchler's Qualm was that checks-and-balances are vital. Tyrion's solution? Draft someone who doesn't seek power. I simply don't see that as viable. Checks and balances have, in the past, worked. The reason I keep telling you that we are in such trouble is that they are gone from the US political system. Checks and balances are the resolution to Buchler's Qualm. With them gone, we're kind of screwed.
Feel free to call me a James Madison fanboy.
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