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Absolute Power
13 February 2024
During our recent deluge, we had a couple of multi-hour power failures that reaffirmed the utility of some older technology like gas stoves and oil lamps.
Absolute Power. Olympus E-PL1 with 14-42mm II R kit lens at 28mmm (56mm equivalent), f5.6, 1/250 second and ISO 200. Processed in Adobe Camera Raw.
On this occasion we poured the last of our lamp oil into the lamps. It's a paraffin-baed product that cost us $5 for 16 oz. about 50 years ago.
But before we hiked down to the hardware store to buy more, we did a little research. It turns out olive oil works just as well and is a bit safer, being edible.
We weren't about to spring for extra virgin olive oil but we thought we'd be able to find some "pure" olive oil for not a lot more than we paid for our lamp oil decades ago. So we put that on our shopping list.
Meanwhile, we ran across this truck parked on the street. And had to laugh.
More than our oil lamp adventure, it recalled a famous line of Lord Acton. We knew the line (often misquoted, BTW) but we wondered what else he had said. The context in short.
So we did a little more research. And found the whole bit:
I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility [that is, the later judgment of historians] has to make up for the want of legal responsibility [that is, legal consequences during the rulers' lifetimes]. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which ... the end learns to justify the means.
How apt a reflection on our current state of affairs.
- An ex-president who lost re-election and fomented an insurrection to prevent the peaceful transfer of power to his successor tries to argue in court that the Presidency provides him with indemnity against not just civil but criminal charges. In perpetuity.
- Religious groups look the other way at the immoral behavior of a candidate who promises to deliver their political agenda.
Frankly, we can't wait for the power to go out again. We know how to light a lamp in darkness.