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Friday
As we watch the crazies take over the House of Representatives, there’s one Congresswoman who stands out to me when it comes to selling one’s soul for power. Elise Stefanik was once a moderate Republican from New York, but—to the horror of many who thought they knew her—she abandoned her previous moderation for Trumpism in 2019. She has become one of the leading election deniers, claims to see fraudulent votes everywhere, talks of the “Biden Crime Family,” and at one point contended that no president has ever been a stronger supporter of the Constitution than Donald J. Trump.
The question arises whether Stefanik actually believes what she professes or is just a cynical politico willing to do and say anything anything to advance herself. I write about her today because I learned recently that she was an English major at Harvard.
According to a Washington Post profile, among Stefanik’s favorite courses in college were Shakespeare in Politics and The English Novel. I don’t know what novels she read in the latter course but it’s likely that she has encountered Macbeth and Julius Caesar, if not in the Shakespeare course then elsewhere.
Her case allows us to address the issue of whether immersion in classic literature makes one a better person. Will it help us to hold onto our moral compass when confronted with the temptations of power, wealth, and other inducements? Or are even the greatest works–at least in some instances–no more than sound and fury, signifying nothing?
And what would Allan Bloom think of Stefanik? I recall the broad claims made by the Chicago humanities professor about the significance of Shakespeare when he was defending the canon and attacking political correctness (today called wokeness) in the early 1990s. Bloom became a hero amongst American conservatives for his book The Closing of the American Mind, but I have in mind an earlier work entitled Shakespeare’s Politics.
In it, Bloom observes that Shakespeare “shows most vividly and comprehensively the fate of tyrants, the character of good rulers, the relations of friends, and the duties of citizens.” By doing so, he argues, the bard moves “the souls of his readers, and they recognize that they understand life better because they have read him; he hence becomes a constant guide and companion.”
Among the plays Bloom examines is Julius Caesar, which he says functions as a workshop on political leadership. As Bloom sees it, Caesar himself is the ideal politician, one who draws on the wisdom of both the high-minded Stoics and the material-focused Epicureans. In other words, he knows how to balance idealism and pragmatism.
The tragedy of conspirators Brutus and Cassius, Bloom argues, is that they cannot comprehend such a combination. Following Bloom’s argument, we can see Brutus as the impractical idealist, Cassius as the cynical pragmatist.
Bloom doesn’t altogether dismiss the two conspirators. Brutus, “the noblest Roman of them all,” will inspire future revolutionaries, and the two together have become
the eternal symbols of freedom against tyranny. They showed that men need not give way before the spirit of the times; they served as models for later successors who would reestablish the spirit of free government. Their seemingly futile gesture helped, not Rome, but humanity.
Having made this concession, however, Bloom faults Brutus and Cassius for their limited vision, and his critique would apply to those successors of theirs who fail to maintain a balance. History is strewn with corrupted rebels.
Stefanik resembles Cassius far more than Brutus. Like the former, she has a “lean and hungry look.” One imagines her realizing, in 2019, that to rise in Republican ranks required attaching herself to the Trump train. And unlike Cassius, she succeeded in her rebellion, ousting the more principled Lynn Cheney and taking her place as the third ranking Republican.
Perhaps, as she prepared to strike her blow against Cheney, Stefanik thought of Brutus’s oft-quoted passage,
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
The irony is that, by taking advantage of what appeared to be a rising tide, Brutus set course on a destiny that resulted in his death. Will Stefanik consider that possibility? Or, if she thought about it, would she rather conclude that Brutus ultimately was not ruthless enough—that he should have killed Marc Antony rather than allowing him to speak, which could well have cemented his advantage. Did she conclude that Brutus’s elevated nature is an impediment, that being the noblest Roman of them all is a consolation prize for losers.
If she wanted a Shakespearean model for overriding all moral qualms, there is, of course, Macbeth. After all, he actually gains a kingship, albeit at a tremendous spiritual and existential cost. He and his wife don’t acknowledge that cost, however, until they are steeped in blood.
So could it be that Stefanik is using her college Shakespeare class as a tyrant’s guide on how to achieve political power? Given the heady smell of power, who cares if one’s life is
but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more…
Maybe, as Sir Philip Sidney warns in Defense of Poesie and Terry Eagleton cautions in Literary Theory: An Introduction, great literature can be used for ill as well as for good. Maybe Stefanik learned the wrong things from Shakespeare, hearing in the plays only what she wanted to hear.