A few years ago I read The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. It tells the story of an aging British butler named Stevens reminiscing about his life in service to a fictional English nobleman named Lord Darlington. As the story unfolds, the reader gradually discovers several important dimensions to his life in the tense period of the 1930s. First, Stevens was so dedicated to his idealized vision of proper service that he neglected his father in his final illness. At the same time, Stevens' ideals led him to drive away the one woman who could put up with him, cutting off the possibility of a romantic relationship because of his self-imposed sense of duty.
Stevens' sense of duty and insistence on the superiority of the English aristocracy drive his choices, but they also prevent him from serious reflection on the choices of his patron. The reader comes to realize that Stevens' many personal sacrifices for Lord Darlington centered on Darlington's quest to preserve the peace between Great Britain and Nazi Germany as Europe became engulfed in war. Darlington failed, of course, but the meaning of Stevens' life of service remains. Late in the novel he comments, "I gave my best to Lord Darlington. I gave him the very best I had to give, and now - well - I find I do not have a great deal more left to give." (242) By refusing to question his betters and sticking to the narrow confines of his duty to maintain the day-to-day functioning of Darlington Hall, Stevens had offered his most important personal relationships up on the altar of duty. The question that haunted me after finish the novel was this: what does it mean if one suffers to do their best, only to discover later that it was all in the service of an evil cause?
The news of the last week has led me to reflect on this question again. For reasons that remain unclear, our President and his closest advisors have repeatedly struggled to state that Russian interference in US elections happened and that it was a bad thing. Rather than going into what all of this means about President Trump's relationship with Putin, or with his appointees heading the intelligence agencies, or the geopolitical consequences of what has happened, I would like to think about these events from the perspective of our democratic institutions.
Among the most common features invoked to demonstrate the superiority of democracies over other kinds of political regimes is the idea of democratic accountability. Unlike a divinely appointed monarch or a military dictatorship, a democratically elected leader must govern with one eye continually turned to public opinion because voters will render a judgement at the next election concerning his or her performance. This retrospective assessment by voters is assumed to be a check on abuses of power and an important source of government's responsiveness to the will of the people.
The surprising foreign policy fiasco of the previous week may lead to some form of electoral accountability, but I have come away with a sense of its deep limitations. When the 2016 election took place, the public had reason to think that Donald Trump would appoint Supreme Court justices such as a Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. They did not, however, have any sense of the degree to which he would reshape American foreign policy in a way that seems fundamentally counter to US interests and beneficial to Vladimir Putin's regime in Russia. The FBI investigations into the many connections between his campaign and Russia was almost entirely unreported because of the absence of leaks. So how were voters that November to know that choosing Trump would lead to a week like this?
Perhaps democratic accountability will work out and voters will hold their elected officials accountable for what has taken place; perhaps they won't, either because they support these actions or they are more concerned with other issues. Either way, I cannot shake the feeling that any such political consequences will be too little, too late for the preservation of the post-WWII global order that has preserved peace between the developed nations of the world since 1945. This remarkable achievement appears to be taken for granted and its fragility is being tested each ensuing month. The geopolitical balance of power is shifting rapidly and the world of 2020 will look quite differently than it did in 2016, whoever wins the next two national elections.
With The Remains of the Day in mind, however, I have begun to consider the whole issue from yet another angle. Even if voters around the country had access to detailed information concerning Trump's foreign policy back in 2016, would many people have considered that a voting issue?
Foreign policy is complex and requires an understanding of the world. While many people have opinions about these issues, those opinions are often ungrounded in knowledge. It is easy to pick on people who cannot identify the country on a map that they would like the US to attack, but there is an understandable reason that this takes place. People have lives. They are busy. Working, caring for family and friends, participating in faith communities, and volunteering in one's neighborhood all require time and attention. I actually think that this makes sense, even as I voraciously read the news. While I may be frustrated that others do not do so as much as I would like, I also recognize that staying up on current events consumes more of my own life than I would willingly admit.
But if it is so difficult for the average person to follow what is happening in the world, then how is democratic accountability supposed to work? As noted in previous posts, I find Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels' answer to the question compelling. They make a persuasive empirical case that it does not work and that most elections are not decided by the issues but by more general factors that nudge the odds of victory one way or another, but without any strong predictive value. If they are right, then in the United States most elections are effectively a coin toss.
Even so, elections have consequences. I imagine there will be people in the coming years who look around at the world and wonder if, in their focus on their daily lives and issues of more immediate concern (such as Supreme Court appointments or domestic policy concerns), they accidentally supported something that makes even these significant matters pale in comparison. Voting is a matter of trust, ultimately, and even when that trust is breached we are stuck with the consequences. I don't know what global turmoil may come, but I can imagine scenarios in which many may feel that there trust was betrayed as they encounter unexpected and yet dire fallout from the events taking place now.
Rather than leaving things on this dark note, however, I would like to turn to something more encouraging. The title of The Remains of the Day comes from the end of the book and refers to the final hours after one's work is done and one is free to live as one chooses. It is the time that is left. While we are unable to go back and change what has happened, we are able to look forward and make new choices. Some may consider this hedonistic, but it also appears to be realistic. Whatever has happened in the past, we can only have the remains of the day in which to act. If we have learned something from the past, then we must use that knowledge to continue on and live better in the time that remains to us, however late it may be.
Stevens' sense of duty and insistence on the superiority of the English aristocracy drive his choices, but they also prevent him from serious reflection on the choices of his patron. The reader comes to realize that Stevens' many personal sacrifices for Lord Darlington centered on Darlington's quest to preserve the peace between Great Britain and Nazi Germany as Europe became engulfed in war. Darlington failed, of course, but the meaning of Stevens' life of service remains. Late in the novel he comments, "I gave my best to Lord Darlington. I gave him the very best I had to give, and now - well - I find I do not have a great deal more left to give." (242) By refusing to question his betters and sticking to the narrow confines of his duty to maintain the day-to-day functioning of Darlington Hall, Stevens had offered his most important personal relationships up on the altar of duty. The question that haunted me after finish the novel was this: what does it mean if one suffers to do their best, only to discover later that it was all in the service of an evil cause?
The news of the last week has led me to reflect on this question again. For reasons that remain unclear, our President and his closest advisors have repeatedly struggled to state that Russian interference in US elections happened and that it was a bad thing. Rather than going into what all of this means about President Trump's relationship with Putin, or with his appointees heading the intelligence agencies, or the geopolitical consequences of what has happened, I would like to think about these events from the perspective of our democratic institutions.
Among the most common features invoked to demonstrate the superiority of democracies over other kinds of political regimes is the idea of democratic accountability. Unlike a divinely appointed monarch or a military dictatorship, a democratically elected leader must govern with one eye continually turned to public opinion because voters will render a judgement at the next election concerning his or her performance. This retrospective assessment by voters is assumed to be a check on abuses of power and an important source of government's responsiveness to the will of the people.
The surprising foreign policy fiasco of the previous week may lead to some form of electoral accountability, but I have come away with a sense of its deep limitations. When the 2016 election took place, the public had reason to think that Donald Trump would appoint Supreme Court justices such as a Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. They did not, however, have any sense of the degree to which he would reshape American foreign policy in a way that seems fundamentally counter to US interests and beneficial to Vladimir Putin's regime in Russia. The FBI investigations into the many connections between his campaign and Russia was almost entirely unreported because of the absence of leaks. So how were voters that November to know that choosing Trump would lead to a week like this?
Perhaps democratic accountability will work out and voters will hold their elected officials accountable for what has taken place; perhaps they won't, either because they support these actions or they are more concerned with other issues. Either way, I cannot shake the feeling that any such political consequences will be too little, too late for the preservation of the post-WWII global order that has preserved peace between the developed nations of the world since 1945. This remarkable achievement appears to be taken for granted and its fragility is being tested each ensuing month. The geopolitical balance of power is shifting rapidly and the world of 2020 will look quite differently than it did in 2016, whoever wins the next two national elections.
With The Remains of the Day in mind, however, I have begun to consider the whole issue from yet another angle. Even if voters around the country had access to detailed information concerning Trump's foreign policy back in 2016, would many people have considered that a voting issue?
Foreign policy is complex and requires an understanding of the world. While many people have opinions about these issues, those opinions are often ungrounded in knowledge. It is easy to pick on people who cannot identify the country on a map that they would like the US to attack, but there is an understandable reason that this takes place. People have lives. They are busy. Working, caring for family and friends, participating in faith communities, and volunteering in one's neighborhood all require time and attention. I actually think that this makes sense, even as I voraciously read the news. While I may be frustrated that others do not do so as much as I would like, I also recognize that staying up on current events consumes more of my own life than I would willingly admit.
But if it is so difficult for the average person to follow what is happening in the world, then how is democratic accountability supposed to work? As noted in previous posts, I find Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels' answer to the question compelling. They make a persuasive empirical case that it does not work and that most elections are not decided by the issues but by more general factors that nudge the odds of victory one way or another, but without any strong predictive value. If they are right, then in the United States most elections are effectively a coin toss.
Even so, elections have consequences. I imagine there will be people in the coming years who look around at the world and wonder if, in their focus on their daily lives and issues of more immediate concern (such as Supreme Court appointments or domestic policy concerns), they accidentally supported something that makes even these significant matters pale in comparison. Voting is a matter of trust, ultimately, and even when that trust is breached we are stuck with the consequences. I don't know what global turmoil may come, but I can imagine scenarios in which many may feel that there trust was betrayed as they encounter unexpected and yet dire fallout from the events taking place now.
Rather than leaving things on this dark note, however, I would like to turn to something more encouraging. The title of The Remains of the Day comes from the end of the book and refers to the final hours after one's work is done and one is free to live as one chooses. It is the time that is left. While we are unable to go back and change what has happened, we are able to look forward and make new choices. Some may consider this hedonistic, but it also appears to be realistic. Whatever has happened in the past, we can only have the remains of the day in which to act. If we have learned something from the past, then we must use that knowledge to continue on and live better in the time that remains to us, however late it may be.
An interesting thought, Phil. I have been thinking about this of late, but more from the perspective of Bertolt Brecht in "Mother Courage and her Children," and Brecht's argument that virtue is not rewarded during corrupt times.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to what remains of this day, I'm unsure if people would change, or frankly, will change their choices. For example, the current fracture on the left (as amply illustrated here: https://theoutline.com/post/5548/0zy-fest-review-please-let-the-seas-take-us?zd=2&zi=lpu4rein) and the fracture on the right that you allude to I think are fueled by anger. Trump just figured out how to channel it. When he fails, there will just be anothre angry person waiting to channel it.