Friday
I recently returned to Samuel Johnson’s great poem The Vanity of Human Wishes in search of insights into our present political moment. Johnson is one of the wisest writers I know—wherever I push my thinking, he is always there before me—and Vanity distills the folly of our desires into a series of remarkably compact couplets. Here’s what I found applicable to our current leadership.
The poem, as its title signals, exposes the emptiness of our material desires. Whatever we think will bring us happiness invariably proves illusory. If we were rational, perhaps we would be able to see this clearly, but Johnson emphasizes how small a role Reason plays in our lives:
How rarely Reason guides the stubborn choice,
Rules the bold hand, or prompts the suppliant voice…
Our actual guides are far less laudable. Vengeance, for instance, is a factor and (turning to our current situation) we can observe the extent to which it has entered into Donald Trump’s thinking. For instance, he fixates on undoing everything accomplished by his predecessor, whether health care, the climate change agreement, the Iran agreement, or good relations with our European allies. We will pay dearly for years to come for these reversals. Or as Johnson succinctly puts it,
How nations sink, by darling schemes oppressed,
When Vengeance listens to the fool’s request…
To accomplish our goals, we desire special powers, but Johnson notes how these can go awry. I think of Trump’s considerable rhetorical skills (sweet elocution, as Johnson puts it) when I read the following pair of couplets. The poet says that wished-for bravery and oratorical brilliance can betray us:
With fatal heat impetuous courage flows,
With fatal sweetness elocution flows,
Impeachment stops the speaker’s powerful breath,
And restless fire precipitates on death.
In other words, foolhardy bravery (restless fire) gets you killed and powerful oratory gets you impeached.
If only.
Many have noted that, to understand Trump (especially his foreign policy), follow the money, whether it be Russian money laundering, Moscow real estate deals, or Saudi Arabian bribes. Johnson is all over the “general massacre” caused by love of gold, which applies as well to those in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry, the NRA, and other wealthy lobbyists and billionaires:
But scarce observ’d the knowing and the bold,
Fall in the gen’ral massacre of gold;
Wide-wasting pest! that rages unconfin’d,
And crowds with crimes the records of mankind,
For gold his sword the hireling ruffian draws,
For gold the hireling judge distorts the laws;
Wealth heap’d on wealth, nor truth nor safety buys,
The dangers gather as the treasures rise.
Having established gold and power’s potential to corrupt, Johnson points out that neither leads to happiness. Along these lines, I think of how some believe Trump would have been happier had Hilary been elected since his finances and other shenanigans might then have escape close examination. Johnson has this covered:
When statutes glean the refuse of the sword,
How much more safe the vassal than the lord;
Low skulks the hind [peasant] beneath the rage of power,
And leaves the wealthy traitor in the Tower,
Untouched the cottager, and his slumbers sound…
Here, however, Johnson must add a “but” since poverty too has its drawbacks:
Though Confiscation’s vultures hover round.
The warning most applicable to Trump and Trump acolytes occurs a couple of sections later when Johnson once again takes up the issue of ambition. He speaks of those who “crowd Preferment’s gate,” the image being of suppliants begging a monarch for favors. The monarch in this case is Fortune, and those who are fortunate (or perhaps not) will get the positions they desire:
Unnumber’d suppliants crowd Preferment’s gate,
Athirst for wealth, and burning to be great;
Delusive Fortune hears th’ incessant call,
They mount, they shine,…
And then just as quickly
…evaporate and fall.
To make matters worse, at every stage of their fall they are hated and insulted:
On every stage the foes of peace attend,
Hate dogs their flight, and Insult mocks their end.
Reading these lines, I think of how many former Trumpists have evaporated and fallen, with Trump himself often hating and insulting them on their way down (“rat” Michael Cohen, “coffee boy” George Papadopolous, “liar” Don McGahn). Those he hasn’t yet hated on or insulted yet owe their temporary reprieve to Trump hoping they won’t incriminate him (Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn).
If Trump loses in 2020, he himself could become the “sinking statesman” abandoned by sycophants. When such a man no longer offers hope to scribblers and dedicators, their love ends and they seek funds elsewhere. Former followers, meanwhile, remove his portrait from their walls, feeding the picture into kitchen flames and auctioning off the gold frames, where people will buy them to hold “better features”:
Love ends with hope, the sinking statesman’s door
Pours in the morning worshiper no more;
For growing names the weekly scribbler lies,
To growing wealth the dedicator flies,
From every room descends the painted face,
That hung the bright Palladium [household god] of the place,
And smok’d in kitchens, or in auctions sold,
To better features yields the frame of gold;
For now no more we trace in ev’ry line
Heroic worth, benevolence divine:
The form distorted justifies the fall,
And detestation rids th’ indignant wall.
Although MAGA cultists currently see “heroic worth, benevolence divine” in their leader, they will experience only detestation after he falls. For evidence of this, recall that George W. Bush was once a conservative darling and even immigrant-loving St. Ronald has lost some of his sheen.
Johnson’s best model for Trump may be Cardinal Wolsey, Henry VIII’s lord chancellor and (as some viewed him) the “other king” (“alter rex”). As long as he has Henry’s support, all is well, but as soon as the king frowns, “his suppliants scorn him and his followers fly”:
In full-blown dignity, see Wolsey stand
Law in his voice, and fortune in his hand:
To him the church, the realm, their pow’rs consign,
Through him the rays of regal bounty shine,
Turn’d by his nod the stream of honor flows,
His smile alone security bestows:
Still to new heights his restless wishes tow’r,
Claim leads to claim, and pow’r advances pow’r;
Till conquest unresisted ceas’d to please,
And rights submitted, left him none to seize.
At length his sov’reign frowns–the train of state
Mark the keen glance, and watch the sign to hate.
Where-e’er he turns he meets a stranger’s eye,
His suppliants scorn him, and his followers fly;
At once is lost the pride of aweful state,
The golden canopy, the glitt’ring plate,
The regal palace, the luxurious board,
The liv’ried army, and the menial lord.
With age, with cares, with maladies oppress’d,
He seeks the refuge of monastic rest.
Grief aids disease, remember’d folly stings,
And his last sighs reproach the faith of kings.
In Trump’s case, the American electorate has but to frown in 2020 for him to live out his final days a bitter man, some of them possibly in jail. Whether he has the sense of shame to lament “remembered folly” is another matter.
Not all of Johnson’s poem focuses on desire for wealth and power. Do you wish to be a famous scientist? Remember what happened to Galileo. Be an exemplary intellectual? Archbishop William Laud was executed during the English Civil War. Live a long life? Well, you’ll either have a painful and cranky old age or, if everything goes perfectly, live to see loved ones die around you. Be beautiful? Two former royal mistresses have something to say about that:
Yet Vane could tell what ills from beauty spring;
And Sedley curs’d the form that pleased a king.
In short, the poem has something for all of us, not only those who sacrifice their souls in pursuit of wealth and power.
But given that power-seekers are making the most noise at the moment, it’s good to remind ourselves that such earthly desires are guaranteed to end in sorrow. Only by turning to God can we find true happiness, Johnson tells us. When we wish, we should wish for a healthful mind, obedient passions, a will resigned, love, patience, and faith:
Pour forth thy fervours for a healthful mind,
Obedient passions, and a will resign’d;
For love, which scarce collective man can fill;
For patience, sov’reign o’er transmuted ill;
For faith, that panting for a happier seat,
Counts death kind Nature’s signal of retreat:
These goods for man the laws of Heav’n ordain,
These goods he grants, who grants the pow’r to gain;
With these celestial wisdom calms the mind,
And makes the happiness she does not find.
To be sure, this means we must take the long view to find consolation. Cardinal Wolsey made people thoroughly miserable for years and years before finally getting his comeuppance.