Lord Acton was wrong, right?
Looks spookily like George Galloway in this picture
Hidden somewhere within a series of letters addressed to Bishop Creighton, Lord Acton made examples of powerful and influential men (the King, to name one example, and the Pope) insisting that in cases of moral criminality, they were not above the law – the opinion seemingly held by his interlocutor.
‘Here are the greatest names coupled with the greatest crimes’ Lord Acton exclaimed of those highly authoritative men – ’you would spare those criminals, for some mysterious reason. I would hang them higher than Haman, for reasons of quite obvious justice, still more, still higher for the sake of historical science.’
Creighton fetishised these men somewhat, until to him it seemed they were immune to laws all others were subject to. Lord Acton had no truck with this; to the extent where he distrusted those who exercised influence. ‘Great men’, he said, ‘are almost always bad men’.
What preceded this was a quote Lord Acton is now most infamously known for: ‘Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’
But Lord Acton was wrong, right? If “[p]ower tends to corrupt,” then surely “absolute power” only has a tendency to corrupt absolutely.
By using the word ‘tends’ Acton acknowledges that corruption is not a necessary element of power, but that the tendency is there. However in the claim that follows, Acton seems to imply that corruption is a logical necessity of power.
Post-hoc (corruption), ergo propter hoc (power).
He contradicts himself.
Lord Acton says the word ‘and’ before adding ‘power corrupts absolutely’, where the word but would appear better suited (though of course he would still be wrong, assuming he sticks with the belief that power tends to corrupt).
Dropping the word tendency in the second part of Acton’s infamous line
shows his logic to be flawed – perhaps Alex Callinicos, leading member of the Socialist Workers’ Party and great grandson of Lord Acton, consequently felt duty bound to be the secretary of the International Socialist Tendency…
Well, if we want to be pedantic for the sake of a bit of fun…..
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You’re making assumptions about the use of the word “tends”, you’re inferring that what’s meant is that it creates a tendency which may or may not be fulfilled.
An alternative interpretation is a mathematical one. Imagine a formula:
f(x) tends towards zero as x increases. The most “absolute” (in this context meaning extreme) value of x would be infinity, and at that point, f(x) is equal to the most “absolute” possible value of “tend-towards-zero”, being zero itself.
With that interpretation of the word “tends”, the quotation is accurate – as power increases, so too does corruption, and in the limit an absolute maximum level of power leads to maximum corruption.
Of course, that would require the quote to be more accurately phrased as:
But if it had been presented in such apparently clumsy language, I doubt it would have been the hit it was…
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Oops, the formatting hasn’t worked quite right, it should read
Nicely illustrated.
Your inclusion of the word ‘toward’ is too significant a change in the overall meaning of Lord Acton’s original phrase. His wording opines that statement one (‘power tends to corrupt’) logically precedes statement two (‘and absolute power corrupts absolutely’).
I’d have put it: as power tends toward corruption, so absolute power corrupts absolutely. That’s even before we question whether f(x) really does tend toward zero as x increases.
James was hinting at my problem with this playful article.
However, thinking about it more, I wonder if we have 2 different, if related, concepts here. On the one hand you have the concepts of power and corruption. These are terms that assume some limiting factor. So it could be possible that the limiting factor reduces corruption to a minimum. On the other hand, in the second part of the phrase, we have 2 absolute concepts. Abosolute power and absolute corruption. These assume no limiting factors and therefore no break at all. The only break would be the charcter of the absolute power, which if you think about it is abosulte corruption.
PS I don’t think I believe in absolutes but just playing devils advocate here.
Lord Acton was, seemingly, saying that an individual with a certain (less than absolute) power may tend to be corrupted by it. One might imagine counter-balancing forces (personality, culture, law, wisdom) which might allow a person to escape corruption despite wielding power. However, absolute power may be considered to be so great that no other force can counter-balance the corrupting effect. There is no inconsistency in this belief, so if Lord Acton is wrong it’s not because he’s illogical or contradicting himself.
If I whack you upside the head with a copy of Against Postmodernism, it will tend to flaten your cranium ever so slightly. If I run a frickin’ steamroller over you noggin it’s absolutely going to turn you into Pancake Head. No happy tending with this one. Chomsky this ain’t.
“secretary of the International Socialist Tendency”, “absolute power”, you’re having a laugh.