Is Corruption in Politics Inevitable?
Along with the desire to inspire people and do good?
“It all began, as I have said, when the Boss, sitting in the black Cadillac which sped through the night, said to me (to Me who was what Jack Burden, the student of history, had grown up to be) "There is always something."
And I said, "Maybe not on the Judge."
And he said, "Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something.”
— Robert Penn Warren, in the Pulitzer Prize-winning All the King’s Men, one of the best novels on politics I ever read, written way back in 1946. It is consistently ranked one of the greatest American novels of the 20th century. Reviews on Goodreads.
I like to re-read it (or listen to it on Audible) because of the lyrical writing and profound insights into human nature. Goodreads has compiled some of the book’s best quotes, which include:
“And what we students of history always learn is that the human being is a very complicated contraption and that they are not good or bad but are good and bad and the good comes out of the bad and the bad out of the good, and the devil take the hindmost.”
“Politics is a matter of choices, and a man doesn't set up the choices himself. And there is always a price to make a choice. You know that. You've made a choice, and you know how much it cost you. There is always a price.”
“The best luck always happens to people who don't need it.”
“Reality is not a function of the event as event, but of the relationship of that event to past, and future, events.”
“The lack of a sense of history is the damnation of the modern world.”
“They say you are not you except in terms of relation to other people. If there weren't any other people there wouldn't be any you because what you do, which is what you are, only has meaning in relation to other people.”
“What you don't know don't hurt you, for it ain't real. They called that Idealism in my book I had when I was in college, and after I got hold of that principle I became an Idealist. I was a brass-bound Idealist in those days. If you are an Idealist it does not matter what you do or what goes on around you because it isn't real anyway.”
“For nothing is lost, nothing is ever lost. There is always the clue, the canceled check, the smear of lipstick, the footprint in the canna bed, the condom on the park path, the twitch in the old wound, the baby shoes dipped in bronze, the taint in the bloodstream. And all times are one time, and all those dead in the past never lived before our definition gives them life, and out of the shadow their eyes implore us.”
”That is what all of us historical researchers believe. And we love truth.”
I hear the 1949 film version is far better than the 2006 remake starring Sean Penn.
The book was based on the character of Huey Long (1893 – 1935) of Louisiana. Nicknamed “The Kingfish”, he was an American politician who served as the 40th governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and as a member of the United States Senate from 1932 until his assassination in 1935. He was the subject of a PBS documentary, as well as other documentaries.
Long also inspired a popular song, “Every Man a King” or in contemporary times, “The Kingfish” by Randy Newman. This video is a tribute to the rascal Huey Long.