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You! Out of my 19th century lit!
Jun. 10th, 2011 10:48 amI am so unsurprised that David Brooks loves Anthony Trollope:
Trollope's heroes, political and otherwise, are conservative (politically conservative even by the standards of Victorian England) and privileged men who are determined to preserve the status quo in which they are privileged. They work 10-4 days (with a healthy break for lunch in between), work within a network of similarly privileged compatriots, and have servants and wives to take care of their material needs. Whether clergymen or civil servants or MPs, they are dutiful and virtuous Victorian bureaucrats and those pesky reformers nattering on about social evils and reform are an unwelcome distraction from the serious business of making business as usual is as usual. Trollope is quite explicitly the anti-Dickens: corruption, child labor, crushing poverty are always overblown and/or easily solved by some nice paternalism -- for which don't the upper classes deserve to be wildly more upper than everyone else?
And this is consistently David Brook's fantasy world of politics, as well: the "right" people who grow up with the "right" education in an environment tolerant of their mistakes do a decent job of keeping everything together so that they can keep on being decent people. Which is all very well if you are a well-off white male in the system -- but it doesn't serve a lot of other people very well at all.
His most admirable characters have been educated by long experience. They have grown mature by exercising responsibility. They have been ennobled by custom and civilization. In his books, powerless outsiders often behave self-indulgently and irresponsibly. Those who are in government have to grapple with the world as it really is.
...Trollope’s ideal politicians share certain traits. They are reserved, prudent and scrupulous. They immerse themselves in dull practical questions like, say, converting the currency system.
...Trollope’s leaders don’t embrace change quickly but have to be dragged into embracing it after much interrogation, and the change they prefer is incremental.
Trollope praises one of his prime ministers, Plantagenet Palliser, for “that exquisite combination of conservatism and progress which is [his country’s] present strength and her best security for the future.”
Trollope's heroes, political and otherwise, are conservative (politically conservative even by the standards of Victorian England) and privileged men who are determined to preserve the status quo in which they are privileged. They work 10-4 days (with a healthy break for lunch in between), work within a network of similarly privileged compatriots, and have servants and wives to take care of their material needs. Whether clergymen or civil servants or MPs, they are dutiful and virtuous Victorian bureaucrats and those pesky reformers nattering on about social evils and reform are an unwelcome distraction from the serious business of making business as usual is as usual. Trollope is quite explicitly the anti-Dickens: corruption, child labor, crushing poverty are always overblown and/or easily solved by some nice paternalism -- for which don't the upper classes deserve to be wildly more upper than everyone else?
And this is consistently David Brook's fantasy world of politics, as well: the "right" people who grow up with the "right" education in an environment tolerant of their mistakes do a decent job of keeping everything together so that they can keep on being decent people. Which is all very well if you are a well-off white male in the system -- but it doesn't serve a lot of other people very well at all.
