Comment by Programmatic | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Programmatic | Hacker News Reader

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I don't think that interpretation jibes with the text:

Assertion:

"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases."

Rationale:

"Historic responsibility [that is, the later judgment of historians] has to make up for the want of legal responsibility [that is, legal consequences during the rulers' lifetimes]. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

He then goes on to rail against people that hold power:

"Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority."

Without the idea that power tends to corrupt those in power, there would be no reason to presume that they did wrong by default or to say that people who exercise influence and authority are bad men.

To define someone as bad you must also define good - and if you are defining the terms, they are meaningless.

From the perspective of the "bad men", they are serving good - be that the good they see in themselves or whatever cause it is they act in. Stalin genuinely believed he was acting in the interests of the Soviet people. Pol Pot was liberating his countrymen.

I would argue that the GP's interpretation is correct - we willingly ignore our own moral compasses when we examine the behaviour of the powerful, as to admit that those that hold power over you are "evil" is to admit your own weakness in not actively opposing that power - so power does indeed corrupt those who behold it, as much as those who hold it - if not moreso, as the "bad men" act in "enlightened self interest" and do no wrong in their own eyes - but you do do wrong by knowingly averting your eyes.

This is more about what Acton was saying, so we're looking at good and bad from his perspective. I don't think we need to invoke moral relativity as we already have a frame of reference. He seems to have clearly indicted men of power unless there's text that I have omitted stating otherwise.

There's probably some of that in there too, but the context is history, so when I read 'great men', for instance, there is an implied 'great men of history' in there. I think Acton was saying our view of events and actions naturally lean towards making excuses and we need to be aware of that.

You probably have a point there, but I think the corruption of authority on the rest of us is certainly a major theme.

> Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority

That implies great men have influence and/or authority to exercise. You may read it as 'great men of history', but if to you that set of people includes those who accomplished a lot without authority of influence (at the time, otherwise it would not be possible to be exercised), then the set of what you and Lord Acton consider 'great men of history' likely have different conditions for inclusion. A simple example of this is probably Srinivasa Ramanujan, whose genius was largely unrecognized until very late in his life, and his notebooks were later studied for his many results. A man of great influence after his death.

That's not to say your interpretation isn't useful, or possibly even correct, just that I think this isn't a piece of supporting evidence for it.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan

> just that I think this isn't a piece of supporting evidence for it

The context is a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887. Acton read some work of Creighton's and thought Creighton wasn't critical enough of certain popes. The context is exactly about why the bishop was too uncritical when looking back on the powerful men of history.

It wasn't a narrative of a pope and how he turned to the dark side after he started wearing white robes.

And I'm sure Acton wasn't referring to men like Ramanujan in his quote, though he may indeed have been a great man in other dimensions.

We are both seeing the same evidence as pointing to a (slightly) different conclusion, and even each others interpretations of our reasoning about that original evidence is seen as supporting our own conclusions. I'm not sure how to get out of this as I suspect it will get far too off-topic before it gets on-topic, if it ever does, other than to note that I think this is generally an indication that we aren't really in disagreement, just arguing over a mistaken perception of the other's position.

In some ways it's mutual. Power tends to remove societal curbs on bad behavior. The natural result in aggregate is an increase in bad behavior. The cause though is both on those who allow and indeed even consent to the removal of those curbs. (See the current Trump campaign.) And the individual who fails to resist the temptation of consequence free action.

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