Great Men Are Usually Bad Men

The Godly Do Not Trust Themselves

The patterns of power are fascinating--and all too often entirely predictable.  As Lord Acton put it,  "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."  The intrinsic and distinctive human tendency to exercise power unto the suffering and destruction of other human beings is writ large everywhere.

Enlightened political theory or philosophy turns around this pivot: since power corrupts, those to whom it is granted must be checked and balanced, limited and restrained at every point.  Republican political theory requires a hydra of balancing and competing authorities, each with limitations, checks and balances.  Naturally such arrangements are rejected by many as inefficient.  Republican government is messy.  It limps along--by deliberate design.  The alternative--an efficient government--is to be feared, for if a government is efficient it can only be so by wielding vast, oppressive powers.

Christian political theory is marked by professing only One absolute power--God.  He has delegated all authority in heaven and upon earth to His anointed King--the man, Jesus Christ.  All other powers are derived, limited, and effective only within restricted spheres of competence.  All other powers are answerable to King Jesus.

Earthly tyrants always follow a different trajectory.  There is always a "One Ring" to "rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them."
 It is a powerful testament to the universal authority and truth of Scripture.  There is, indeed, nothing new under the sun.  The modern Unbeliever cannot account for this uniformity.

We were reading recently of the Burmese military dictatorship.  The striking thing is that without knowing much at all about Myanmar one could predict pretty accurately how the trajectory of its absolutist generals has played out.

In 1962, a military coup ousted the civilian government and established a revolutionary council led by General Ne Win.  It was a decisive moment for Burma: the regime that seized power then has ended up ruling the country in one guise or another up to the present day.  . . . Ne Win was a capacious and hotheaded leader, but he prized loyalty above all else.  [Emma Larkin, No Bad News for the King (New York: Penguin Books, 2010),  p. 103.]

The demand for loyalty from underlings is code for the assertion of absolute power and control.

Burma's years under Ne Win were disastrous for the country.  Ne Win closed off Burma from the rest of the world.  He expelled foreign residents, nationalized all business and industry, and launched the "Burmese Way to Socialism," a political system that blended Marxism, Buddhism, and authoritarian rule.  More ethnic groups took up arms against the Burmese government . . . . the country was locked in perpetual civil war.  After twenty-five years with Ne Win at the helm, the economy had become so deflated that the United Nations declared Burma one of the least developed countries.  [Ibid.]

The only modern, technological and developed aspect of the nation and its economy was the military: it was the sole growth "industry".

Throughout the 1990's an energetic recruitment effort expanded its troops from two hundred thousand in 1988 to an estimated four hundred thousand over a decade later.  The army also stocked up on weapons and ammunition.  Helicopters came from Russia, machine guns and mortar rounds were purchased from Pakistan, and China was a source for rocked launchers, antiaircraft gun system and armored personnel carriers.  . . . While the rest of the world sees a military run amok, the Tatmadaw [military] believes it has repeatedly rescued the country from the brink of disaster.  [Ibid. p. 104,5]

The same patterns have played or are playing out in the Soviet Union, North Korea, China, the Eastern bloc, etc.  When one grasps unlimited, absolute power the cascade of commands and controls begins flowing down.  The people become enslaved: serfs, things and objects.  The attempt to "put things to right" by means of god-like power destroys and enslaves everything in its path.

The godly do not trust power.  They want to be checked, balanced, thwarted, for they do not trust themselves.  That is why the godly husband values and seeks the upbraiding counsel of his wife, and vice versa.  That is why godly rulers value the advice and consent of many, and patiently receive the corrections and rebukes of other authorities God has appointed.  By these means, human power is delimited. The corrupting tendencies of power are curtailed.

But these ideals and principles of liberty cannot be sustained without a Deeper Magic--a culture's belief that the One appointed Judge of all the earth alone has total command, and that we--all of us--are His humble servants.