THE MURKY RADIANCE OF DOMINION AND POWER

It is helpful to listen to the past, in order to get a perspective on the priorities of other people in other times. It is helpful also in understanding their fears. For what they fear, we might become.

On July 4, 1821 John Quincy Adams, at that time Secretary of State, gave a speech delineating the kind of nation the United States ought to be in regards to interaction with other foreign powers. Numerous parts of the speech stand out, but this one in particular:

Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.

Now, if you are a visual person, this description bears a striking resemblance to a certain section from a movie. You see, this description looks ripped right out of The Fellowship of the Ring. In the movie, the elf queen Galadriel is offered The One Ring by Frodo and instantly recognizes the test upon her:

You offer it to me freely? I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired this. 

In the place of a Dark Lord you would have a Queen! Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the Morn! Treacherous as the Seas! Stronger than the foundations of the Earth! All shall love me and despair! 
…
I have passed the test. I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.

In the Lord of the Rings, The One Ring is the physical manifestation of the axiom “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The only way (save for Tom Bombadil who is weird that way) to avoid the corrupt is to never wield the Ring. Even those who wield it for a short time are irrevocably contaminated.

The Founders feared the accumulation of power in individuals or even in groups of individuals. This is why so much of US government is systematically designed to thwart itself. Taking from the imagery, they saw Rings of Power throughout European and world history and sought to avoid the contamination that came with wielding them.

Adams’ desire to avoid participation in European conflict stems from his desire that America be an example of freedom and not its enforcer. “She goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” Speaking in a similar vein, Nietzsche said, “He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.” If the wielder of power is not careful, they will become the very thing they seek to destroy.

The United States, both its government officials and its citizens, needs to look at its foreign policy in a proactive sense. We have been very reactionary of late. Times have changed since the days of Adams, as numerous Presidents have argued, but we ought to examine whether or not we have become and are becoming the nation we wish to be.

Even noble virtues can be corrupted and it would appear that the American monster is Tyrannical Liberty. After all, one of the mottos of the Roman Empire was Pax y Securitas, Peace and Safety. But it was also said of them by the Roman historian Tacitus, “They create a wasteland and call it peace.”