Archetypes and Offices
Dec. 26th, 2006 09:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaIt used to be a truism that one "respected the office of the Presidency," even if one didn't respect the man in it. While it was a tradition more respected in the breach than in the practice, especially after Nixon, it at least got lip service paid, up through and including pacifists and anti-big-oil activists protesting Gulf War I and Bush the Elder. The rabid Republicans broke with the tradition during the Clinton presidency, at least in part on the theory that the Clintons, plural, had broken the office by trying to co-occupy it. There also may have been some hint of their privately-held theory that the office of the presidency has been neutered post-Nixon coming out, now that it wasn't one of their own who would take the implication of castration. (That Clinton was clearly the least personally castrated man to hold the office since LBJ just made them that much madder.) Everyone else in the world followed the far right on the topic when Bush the Younger took office, this time mostly under the argument that he held the office illegitimately, thus tarnishing the Presidency itself.
Judging from the popular literature and films of the early 20th century, there was, for a while, a sense that while a less than able man might be elected to the position, there was something powerful about the office of the Presidency itself that ennobled its holder. Perhaps there is a sense that the Oval Office still contains all of the 42 previous officeholders, that the man who sits at that desk is in some way inheritor of the memory of every man who ever sat there, or in the equivalent desk before that one existed. There is, or at least was, an archetype of The President that stood over and above the man; even in later films, you can see its influence (it shows up in the confrontation between the President and the alien in ID4, for instance - a lesser man, even a man of science, would have succumbed to the alien's mental assault; Dave has a couple of even better examples, moments when Dave clearly is the President no matter what anyone else thinks). Every President is Washington, is Jefferson, is Lincoln, is Roosevelt (either one), is Kennedy. Part of the reason Reagan got through two terms without a scratch, despite his already-deteriorating memory, is that he was good at portraying the President; he knew perfectly well he was acting. And I think part of the left's dissatisfaction with the current officeholder, and part of the reason for the recent popular rebuke, is that the current officeholder refuses to take up that mantle. He doesn't want to embody an archetype; the idea would probably seem vaguely pagan, or at least academic and decadent, to him. He wants the Presidency to just be him. His best moments are when the archetype of the office sneaks up on him (just post-9/11). (Note also that there is no equivalent archetype for the office of the Vice-Presidency.)
The Presidency is only a 230-year-old institution at most, though. (Actually a few years younger than that, since the Constitution wasn't officially adopted until June of 1788, and the federal government didn't actually convene until March of 1789.) Kings, queens, and emperors have to deal with this sort of thing all the time, and the imagery of the archetype starts verging on the divine; if not the god-Pharaoh directly, at least the divine right of kings to rule. In a time when we separate political power from symbolic rulership, it's interesting that the archetype follows the symbol, not the actual power. There may be an archetype of the Prime Minister, too, but it pales next to the King. It will be interesting to see what happens when a man who has lived well into middle age without that archetype has it settled onto his forehead in the form of a crown.
Hmm. So what's the oldest living office? The Emperor of Japan? Don't know much about him, though. That's the province of Shinto. The Dalai Lama? That's a powerful archetype, there. Again, though, foreign to most of us. What's the longest living office in the Western world, now that we no longer have a Holy Roman Emperor?
It's the bishopric of Rome, isn't it? The Papacy is darn near 2000 years old.
So, after having a powerful man who changed the nature of the modern papacy by becoming a sort of ambassador to the world hold the office for an unusually long time, what happened? A theological hard-liner, a tough man with a frightening past, is elected to the office, tightens the rules regarding gays in the priesthood - and then starts talking about Divine Love. A scholar of the church, he presents a well-researched case about the primary theological differences between Christianity (or at least Catholicism) and Islam that presents Islam in some of the harshest terms since the Crusades - and then he takes off his shoes in a mosque in Turkey and bows his head in prayer. God's Vicar is acting as the Church's greatest ambassador; even though the man in the triple crown is rather unsuited to the task, he is starting to rise to the occasion, as the office and the archetype demand of him. (That last may have been an only-Nixon-could-go-to-China event, and now, having mentioned Nixon three times in this piece, I think I have effectively Godwined it and should stop typing.)
Judging from the popular literature and films of the early 20th century, there was, for a while, a sense that while a less than able man might be elected to the position, there was something powerful about the office of the Presidency itself that ennobled its holder. Perhaps there is a sense that the Oval Office still contains all of the 42 previous officeholders, that the man who sits at that desk is in some way inheritor of the memory of every man who ever sat there, or in the equivalent desk before that one existed. There is, or at least was, an archetype of The President that stood over and above the man; even in later films, you can see its influence (it shows up in the confrontation between the President and the alien in ID4, for instance - a lesser man, even a man of science, would have succumbed to the alien's mental assault; Dave has a couple of even better examples, moments when Dave clearly is the President no matter what anyone else thinks). Every President is Washington, is Jefferson, is Lincoln, is Roosevelt (either one), is Kennedy. Part of the reason Reagan got through two terms without a scratch, despite his already-deteriorating memory, is that he was good at portraying the President; he knew perfectly well he was acting. And I think part of the left's dissatisfaction with the current officeholder, and part of the reason for the recent popular rebuke, is that the current officeholder refuses to take up that mantle. He doesn't want to embody an archetype; the idea would probably seem vaguely pagan, or at least academic and decadent, to him. He wants the Presidency to just be him. His best moments are when the archetype of the office sneaks up on him (just post-9/11). (Note also that there is no equivalent archetype for the office of the Vice-Presidency.)
The Presidency is only a 230-year-old institution at most, though. (Actually a few years younger than that, since the Constitution wasn't officially adopted until June of 1788, and the federal government didn't actually convene until March of 1789.) Kings, queens, and emperors have to deal with this sort of thing all the time, and the imagery of the archetype starts verging on the divine; if not the god-Pharaoh directly, at least the divine right of kings to rule. In a time when we separate political power from symbolic rulership, it's interesting that the archetype follows the symbol, not the actual power. There may be an archetype of the Prime Minister, too, but it pales next to the King. It will be interesting to see what happens when a man who has lived well into middle age without that archetype has it settled onto his forehead in the form of a crown.
Hmm. So what's the oldest living office? The Emperor of Japan? Don't know much about him, though. That's the province of Shinto. The Dalai Lama? That's a powerful archetype, there. Again, though, foreign to most of us. What's the longest living office in the Western world, now that we no longer have a Holy Roman Emperor?
It's the bishopric of Rome, isn't it? The Papacy is darn near 2000 years old.
So, after having a powerful man who changed the nature of the modern papacy by becoming a sort of ambassador to the world hold the office for an unusually long time, what happened? A theological hard-liner, a tough man with a frightening past, is elected to the office, tightens the rules regarding gays in the priesthood - and then starts talking about Divine Love. A scholar of the church, he presents a well-researched case about the primary theological differences between Christianity (or at least Catholicism) and Islam that presents Islam in some of the harshest terms since the Crusades - and then he takes off his shoes in a mosque in Turkey and bows his head in prayer. God's Vicar is acting as the Church's greatest ambassador; even though the man in the triple crown is rather unsuited to the task, he is starting to rise to the occasion, as the office and the archetype demand of him. (That last may have been an only-Nixon-could-go-to-China event, and now, having mentioned Nixon three times in this piece, I think I have effectively Godwined it and should stop typing.)
