In the movie, “Master and Commander,” Captain Jack (Russell Crowe) asks the ship’s surgeon, Dr. Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany) to choose one of the two weevils crawling around in their food. The doctor initially says that they are the same in the critical aspects: “Arcades ambo. They are the same species of curculio, and there is nothing to choose between them.” When Captain Jack insists on a choice, the doctor chooses the larger one. The captain says that he has chosen incorrectly because “in the Navy you must always choose the lesser of two weevils.”
Now that the political “silly season” has begun in the U.S., I have been reminded of the musical question asked by the Fugs in a song about a river (you can ask Google for the title). They ask why we must always be voting for the lesser of two evils and then wonder whether George Washington was the lesser of two evils. As best I can tell, the Colonies did not have a two-party political system at that time, but you can be sure that alternative political choices were available. Rumor has it that many in the Colonies wanted George to be king and, when asked, he refused. That was probably a good thing, as at the time there was a king in England named George, and people might have been confused and considered them the same species of curculio with nothing to choose between them.
One of the problems with politics is that the associated leadership creates power, and those in power tend to pass laws designed to increase their power. Lord Acton was generally correct in saying that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Corruption and power seem to be on a sliding scale, so that increases of power bring increases in corruption. The natural order is to use power to accumulate more: big fish tend to have smaller fish for dinner. Regardless of party affiliation, 50 percent of the members of the U.S. congress are millionaires, and it shouldn’t surprise us that in something like 94 percent of elections, the candidate who spends the most money wins. The winners then propose legislation and pass the laws. Recently, Dylan Ratigan, a TV commentator, has been campaigning to get the money out of politics. It seems to me that getting the money out would help reduce the temptation for politicians to slide into corruption.
The larger issue, however, is the degree to which power—in all its various guises—is simply a given. As Tennyson pointed out in one of his major poems, “In Memoriam A.H.H,” all of nature is “red in tooth and claw.” Regardless of the degree to which you accept Darwin’s theory of evolution, it’s hard to miss the fact that species compete for survival using whatever tools (weapons) they have available. Humans have, of course, been doing the same thing since the dawn of history. In The Better Angels of our Nature, Steven Pinker correlates the rise and fall of various forms of human violence with the kinds of weapons available. One village raids another, kills the men, and appropriates the women. You may have wondered whether male politicians ever use their power to gain access to women….
Lord Acton’s concept of the corrupting influence of power is one of the reasons Captain Jack’s comment about the importance of choosing the “lesser of two weevils” is significant. The only way to prevent the larger weevils from becoming even larger is to deny them the opportunity to accumulate more wealth, power, and influence. Although human intelligence can be viewed as just another weapon used to amplify the power of “tooth and claw,” it also provides an escape hatch: a view, perhaps, of “our better angels.” Many of those who were the best at accumulating wealth, power, and influence eventually became our best-known philanthropists. Perhaps they grew bored with acquisition, or perhaps they began to envision camels attempting to go through the eye of the needle and wanted to use their wealth in ways that might earn them status in the Great Beyond.
For whatever reason, they grew tired of accumulating the trappings of wealth and power. As Pinker points out, the same basic concept applies to the evolution of the weapons of warfare. For one reason or another, most people are now saying, “Enough is enough.” We—humans—have a lot of really big weapons we have elected not to use. In some ways, Dylan Ratigan and those who have joined the “Get the money out” movement are also saying that enough is enough. Those participating in the “Occupy Wall Street” (OWS) movement, although less articulate in expression of the idea, seem to be saying the same thing. The general tenor of the Arab Spring suggests similar sentiments.
Perhaps as a species we’re beginning to decide that, whether we’re in the Navy or not, it’s important to choose the lesser of two weevils.
