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The return of the king

Hogarth
/
Wikimedia

We had become so accustomed to assuming that democracy was desirable – like clean air or cheap credit, obviously good for everyone – that we scarcely thought about it anymore. Meanwhile, worldwide, democracy was being pushed back by various forms of authoritarianism. This is an all too familiar human story.

Ancient Rome managed to keep a more or less democratic republic for over five hundred years, only to lose it to a long line of authoritarian emperors, most of whom were extremely nasty. Who needed them? The authoritarian leader – whether he calls himself king or emperor or dear leader or president or father of the people – is usually just one man (and usually indeed a man). But he may dominate millions of people. How does this work? One answer must be that the people like being dominated.

Dictators and ex-dictators always have their fans. There are still admirers of General Franco in Spain, Mussolini in Italy, and Stalin in Russia. Even Hitler is not without his groupies, and perhaps Napoleon, Henry VIII, and Attila the Hun have them, too. These monsters never quite go away, and neither, it seems, do we want them to. They embody the romance of absolute power.

If you think this is fanciful, consider the popular obsession with monarchy. The British Royal Family, for example, though scarcely authoritarian, is still an object of international fascination, even though it seems to be a rather dull bunch of people. This fascination is reflected in movies and television, where plot after plot feeds off the notion that royal people are somehow intrinsically superior to the rest of us: The Crown, Victoria, The King’s Speech, Mary Queen of Scots, The Reign, Elizabeth I, Wolf Hall, and on and on.

Many of our favorite entertainments are built around the fantasy of absolute power. The high point of Lord of the Rings is the return to power of Aragorn, with the immortal line “Well, I’m back,” although you couldn’t envy him the job. There’s no sign of democracy in epics like Star Wars nor in the popular TV series called Game of Thrones. I’ve never seen this particular soap opera, but I’ve been told that it’s not about constitutional democracy.

Our contradictory culture seems to embrace a subversive longing for a strong leader who will sweep away the uncertainties of democracy. The sleazy struggle between politicians for money, votes and power in a democratic system is unedifying and rather pathetic, but we have little to fear from it because democratic governments rarely get anything done, good or bad. Congress in Washington has been unable or unwilling to make any important decision for decades. In a mature democracy like ours, the powers are nicely balanced, resulting in complete paralysis and no action of any kind – in other words, stability. The least dangerous government is one that is tied in knots by the complications of multi-party democracy and never does anything at all.

By contrast we imagine that a powerful leader can make decisions and see them carried out, just like that. That’s the grand illusion of power, which hasn’t changed since the days of the Roman Empire. A sad disillusion awaits the leader who expects to make history and instead finds himself in the iron grip of history. A little modesty would not come amiss.

David began as a print journalist in London and taught at a British university for almost 20 years. He joined WSHU as a weekly commentator in 1992, becoming host of Sunday Matinee in 1996.