• Aristotle and the Price of Nookie

  Posted Tuesday, March 11, 2008 6:38 PM | By Dana Stevens
  
  
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  Rosa, I'm glad you mentioned tragedy in your last post. I've been thinking all day that what makes Spitzer's downfall electrifying to watch isn't just the comical pop schadenfreude of seeing a public figure stand accused of the very vice he has publicly deplored (and Liza, some other examples that pop to mind from this very well-padded list include televangelist-turned-adulterer James Bakker, senator-turned-washroom-cruiser Larry Craig and New Jersey governor-turned-gay-Episcopal-priest James McGreevey.) The "myth" Dahlia refers to -- that the holders of power are somehow immune to human weakness—is at least as old as Aristotle's definition of the tragic hero: A powerful man of noble birth, who experiences a reversal of fortune because of an error in judgment or character. In the words of the Shakespeare scholar Robert Heilman (as quoted in this essay), the tragic hero is caught "between imperative and impulse, between moral ordinance and unruly passion ... between law and lust." I think some of the fascination this scandal affords comes from that paradox at the heart of political power. Some part of us expects our leaders to be morally exemplary supermen, no matter how often we're reminded that once in power, they often operate more like tribal warlords, brazenly amassing women and wealth. The argument can certainly be made that Spitzer's dalliance is a private matter, unrelated to affairs of state (assuming he used his own money to pay for that staggeringly expensive nookie.) But to move from an ancient archetype to a more modern one, isn't Spiderman's motto "with great power comes great responsibility"?
  Filed under: Eliot Spitzer, tragedy, prostitution, adultery
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