CONSERVATIVE

demonic ideological forces of our time in such depth as
T. S. Eliot’s play Murder in Cathedral.
According to Kirk’s analysis in Eliot and His Age,
Eliot’s theatrical play written in verse utilises the historical
narrative of Archbishop Thomas Beckett’s murder by
knights of King Henry II in 1170 as a representation of
modern struggle between the human soul and the state.
After being tempted with selfish prudence by secular
power and reckless alliances, the only possible way to
redemption, most often, is to “fare forward to the end”,
which, in some cases, leads to the crown of martyrdom.
In a passage from Murder in the Cathedral, the second
tempter states that “rule over men reckons no madness”,
further adding that “power is present, for him who will
yield”. In Eliot’s play, Archbishop Beckett rejects this
tempter by concluding that “those who put their faith in
worldly order / not controlled by the order of God, / in
confident ignorance, but arrest disorder, / make it fast,
breed fatal disease, / degrade what they exalt”.
In popular culture, a fine example of how a hero can
be seduced by a tempter offering promises of unlimited
power, causing him or her to become the villain of the
story, appears in the movie Revenge of the Sith, the third
episode of the Star Wars saga. The relationship between
the characters Palpatine and Anakin Skywalker resembles
that between Mephistopheles and Faust, as shown in
particular in Christopher Marlowe and Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe’s versions. By asserting that “all those who
gain power are afraid to lose it”, the ambitious and
manipulative Palpatine shares the same political vision
of the sophist Thrasymachus, which, as presented in
the debate with Socrates in Plato’s Republic, argued that
“justice is the advantage of the stronger”.
With the tempting offer of being given the power to
save his wife from death and at the same time restore the
order in a society beset by corruption and war, Palpatine
(the tempter) seduces and corrupts Anakin, by proposing
a kind of satanic pact that ends up transforming him into
Darth Vader, a servant of the dark side of the Force.
Darth Vader then destroys the Jedi Order, guardians
of peace and justice of the Republic, allowing for the
implementation of Palpatine’s despotic Empire.
The narrative of Anakin’s defeat can be used as
a metaphor to explain the ideas of Eric Voegelin and
Russell Kirk, according to which the external disorders
of society are but a reflection of internal disorders of the
individual members in a political community. Anakin is
tainted with many characteristics of a tragic hero: his fall
was due to his choice of the wrong means to right ends.
Most of the time, the rise of state power and government
centralisation are the result of people’s naïve trust in
governmental measures that promise to increase their
well-being. This perspective sacrifices liberty in the name
of safety.
The fight against control and decay
In recent years in the United States and Europe, many
state actions have tried to expand government control
over, for example, information content. The justification
for this conduct is the fight against terrorism and/or
the demands of political correctness. Interestingly, two
recently released movies allow us to analyse this problem
quite clearly.
The first is Spectre, the latest film about Ian Flaming’s
British spy character James Bond. Compared to previous
Bond movies starring Daniel Craig, Spectre can be
considered to be the best and most faithful to the original
spirit of the series, for it retrieves the character’s virility.
The moral imagination of the narrative is manifested in
his sense of duty, obsessive search for the truth, reliability
of his promises made to the enemy while shielding of his
beloved and friends—virtues that stick to agent 007 until
his self-sacrifice in the name of what it is right.
The second is The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2,
the second half of the final part of Suzanne Collins book
trilogy’s film adaptation. The role of the protagonist
Katniss Everdeen, played by the beautiful and talented
young actress Jennifer Lawrence, once again carries out
presenting the psychological and moral dramas that
outline the actions of this heroic and rebellious woman.
Following the tradition of the dystopian novel, Collins’
narrative presents several philosophical questions about
the importance of moral choices and individual freedom,
giving rise to discussions about various social issues.
The Catholic symbolism presented throughout the plot,
presented most clearly in the book versions, is one factor
that sets apart The Hunger Games as the production with
the highest degree of moral imagination among the
dystopias in the recent years.
There is an important common ground between the
two films that has to be approached, as it is an alert to
the aforementioned political situation. The Hunger Games:
Mockingjay, Part 2 and Spectre both directly examine the
government’s attempt to monopolise and manipulate
information, and they stress that, frequently, apparent
allies are criminals as dangerous as one’s political
opponents.
In this fight against the decay plaguing our Western
civilisation, a prudent conservative cannot count on
government centralisation as a tool for the restoration
of order, freedom, and justice. In the search for a
solution to the crisis of modern times, it is paramount
to rediscover the individual ethical discipline offered by
the moral imagination and the real sense of community
founded on religious sense. For the success of this
crusade, the allegories provided by the popular culture
can be an important ally because, as Russell Kirk said in
his book Enemies of the Permanent Things: “if a man relies
wholly upon his private rational powers, he will lose his
faith—and perhaps the world as well, risking his nature
at the Devil’s chess-game. But if a man fortifies himself
with the lessons of the ages, and so is fit to confront
even a diabolical adversary”.
Alex Catharino is Vice-President of the Interdisciplinary Center
for Ethics and Personalist Economics, Managing Editor of
the academic journals Communio and Mises, and Resident
Researcher for the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal.
His most recent book is Russell Kirk: The Pilgrim in the
Wasteland published by É Realizações Editora in São Paulo.
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Winter/Spring 2016