My father left school in grade six and worked as a laborer for his entire life. An unhappy man, he mistrusted just about everyone who had power. And I soaked up that mistrust. Assigned “The Republic” in high school, I was struck by Plato’s idea that only those who do not seek political power should be allowed to wield it. That led me to think maybe we’d be better off if our political leaders were chosen by lot. Something like jury duty. Each of us would be on a list, our names randomly chosen to hold office.
Opinion
I haven’t thought this out very clearly, but I have a few notions. Maybe we could start by dividing up local offices amongst our neighbors.. My first posting might be to the county trails board, or the library board — more about books soon. With some experience, my name might then be put in the pool for city council or county commissioner. And so on — state legislator, congressman, president. I’m hoping I’m never called for that last one. What I’d most like is to be put permanently in the pool for possible selection to an ambassadorship. That’s my dream. Maybe ambassador to Belgium, where my father’s mother came from. Or Norway, where my mother’s family lived for centuries. I have a first cousin in Oslo and my sister’s daughter lived for a year in Trondheim, the latter a beautiful and very livable city, even though you have to pay nearly $10 for a latté.
When I visited, my niece took me to her favorite coffee shop in the Old Town — narrow streets, music students from the nearby conservatory walking or cycling with violin and cello backpack cases. There were tables outside and each chair had a thick sheep’s fleece over it and a wool blanket on top of the fleece. At 25 degrees Fahrenheit with no wind, we sat outside in our coats and hats holding our lattés in mittened hands. Comfortable on the fleece-covered chairs with blankets over our laps, we watched life go by.
Let’s get to books now. As a young person who was curious about the world, I turned to books on other places, other peoples, other languages, other ideas of the good life, like that bit from Plato claiming only those who do not seek power should be allowed to wield it.
Were it not for my high school teacher who assigned “The Republic,” I might never have been set to wondering how we come to grant some people power over others. As my reading widened, I bumped into John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton (1834-1902), the First Baron Acton and 13th Marquess of Groppoli, who said, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” A surprising statement from a man who enjoyed a great deal of power, it seems to me an accurate assessment of almost every powerful figure history presents to us. Or am I only reflecting what my father passed on to me — that deep mistrust, even hostility, to those who have authority over us?
Later, I read that Lord Acton admired the federal system of government in the United States, believing it to be the world’s best hope for the protection of individual liberties. Because of this, during the U.S. Civil War, Acton supported the Confederacy, seeing it as defending states’ rights against a centralized government that must surely end in tyranny. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. After all, Acton had been refused admittance to Cambridge University because he was a Catholic. Wouldn’t this personal experience of discrimination have led him to consider the issue of slavery as equally or more compelling than that of states’ rights?
There were few books in my house growing up, so I depended upon my school teachers to help me see the world beyond my neighborhood and background. I also depended on my local public library, where there were shelves and shelves of books waiting to be opened and read. The library was a haven for all manner of thought that set out to debunk arbitrary power. I could wander the aisles, wondering about the lives of others, about the ways in which those lives and my own were alike and different. And I think I learned as much from the science fiction novels I loved as from heavyweights such as Plato and Lord Acton.
I began here by remembering my father, who had little schooling, could barely read, and mistrusted both books and the people who wrote them as little more than vehicles for wielding power over him. But it hasn’t been that way for me. Books have, as they say, given me wings to fly. Now, about that ambassadorship.
