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Monday
Last week I wrote on a literary work—Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein—that has been applied so many times to politics that it has become a cliché. In fact, people don’t even mention the work when they talk about creating a monster that you cannot control. Nor do they cite Alice in Wonderland when they say “going down a rabbit hole” or Doctor Faustus when they accuse someone of selling his or her soul. Clichés, a readily applicable formula, too often take the place of thought.
But that doesn’t mean they’re wrong. As a wise English colleague once pointed out to me, students using clichés are often on the verge of insight. Rather than dismiss the cliché, the best approach is to prod the writer to reexamine and explore it further.
Similarly, one can revitalize a literary cliché by returning to the original work. I do so in today’s post after having encountered Mitt Romney’s observation about a colleague selling himself.
It appears in what people are calling Mitt Romney’s “burn book,” in that the former GOP presidential nominee has been remarkably frank in sharing his low opinion of his colleagues with his biographer. One particular target of his contempt is Ohio senator and author of Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance. Romney had been impressed by Vance after reading the book, but that all changed when Vance became a Trump sycophant in order to win the election:
“How can you go over a line so stark as that — and for what?” Romney wondered. “It’s not like you’re going to be famous and powerful because you became a United States senator. It’s like, really? You sell yourself so cheap?”
According to biographer McKay Coppins, Romney had similar things to say about others senators with potential:
“They know better!’ (Romney) told me. “Josh Hawley is one of the smartest people in the Senate, if not the smartest, and Ted Cruz could give him a run for his money.” They were too smart, Romney believed, to actually think that Trump had won the 2020 election. Hawley and Cruz “were making a calculation,” Romney told me, “that put politics above the interests of liberal democracy and the Constitution.”
None of the three men is using their power to make American lives better, having become Trump sycophants and internet trolls. Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus also sells himself cheap, and it’s worth looking at how and why that happens.
The foremost scientist, doctor, theologian, and philosopher of his day, Faustus is admired by everyone. We learn that he has cured whole cities of the plague (his medical prescriptions are “hung up as monuments”) and he excels “all those whose sweet delight dispute/ In heavenly matters of theology.” The chorus in the play says that he is as worthy of having his story told as a great general or legendary lover.
So where does he go wrong? Well, he decides he wants power and will make a deal with the devil to get it.
Now, power isn’t necessarily a bad thing if it is used wisely. And indeed, Faustus originally claims that he wants to do good things with it. We get a list of projects, delivered to us in Marlowe’s soaring poetry:
Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please,
Resolve me of all ambiguities,
Perform what desperate enterprise I will?
I’ll have them fly to India for gold,
Ransack the ocean for orient pearl,
And search all corners of the new-found world
For pleasant fruits and princely delicates;
I’ll have them read me strange philosophy,
And tell the secrets of all foreign kings;
I’ll have them wall all Germany with brass,
And make swift Rhine circle fair Wertenberg;
I’ll have them fill the public schools with silk,
Wherewith the students shall be bravely clad;
I’ll levy soldiers with the coin they bring,
And chase the Prince of Parma from our land,
And reign sole king of all the provinces;
Yea, stranger engines for the brunt of war,
Than was the fiery keel at Antwerp’s bridge,
I’ll make my servile spirits to invent.
You may find some of these ambitions problematic—say, “stranger engines for the brunt of war”—but at least he’s got a program. Marlowe is tapping into new world exploration, interchanges with newly discovered cultures, and the dawning of the scientific age. What formerly seemed impossible now seems within reach.
Only Faustus accomplishes none of these things. Instead, he uses his powers to become a trickster, conman, and court entertainer. At different times we see him play tricks on the pope, plant cuckold horns on the head of a rival, swindle some poor guy out of $40 by selling him a horse that was originally straw (and that reverts to straw again when the horse touches water), and entertain a couple of rulers with (1) fresh grapes in winter time and (2) a holographic image of Helen of Troy. This is what he gets in return for selling his immortal soul?!
Such a downfall could be predicted. Once you value your private gratification more than your soul, you can no longer distinguish between what’s important and what’s trivial. You squander your considerable gifts chasing cheap applause, and when the end comes, it’s agonizing because you’ve put all your faith in something that is transitory—which is to say, in your ego.
Romney, a man of principle as well as ambition, had the vision to see that Vance had something to him. Whether or not one likes Hillbilly Elegy—Vance’s contempt for many of his fellow hillbillies has drawn criticism—it is still impressive that he rose out of poverty to eventually attend Yale Law School. It is a life trajectory that he shares with Faustus, who also triumphed over an impoverished childhood (his parents are described as “base of stock”) to attend Wittenberg, German’s premier university.
With his direct experiences of rural poverty, it would be laudable if he ran for Senate so that he could address these issues associated with it. If, say, he worked with Democrats to bring industry back to America or transform coal country into a green energy producer, he might be able to justify whatever nefarious means he used to be elected senator.
Instead, he has chosen to be a performance artist and a clown for Trump. To repeat Romney’s reaction, “Really? You sell yourself so cheap?”