Saint Mary’s
University
Department of
Political Science
Political Science
4834: Politics, Theory and Culture (2011/12)
Melancholy and Power: A Study of the Vicissitudes of
Leadership and Agency.
Instructor: Florian
Bail
Office: Dalhousie,
Henry Hicks Building, Room 354
Office Hours (at Dal) M/W 12:00 – 13:00 or by appointment
Tel. 494.6608
e-mail: fbail@dal.ca
Description
In politics leadership is everything. But how well is it
understood? We distinguish between charismatic and ordinary leadership. We also
reduce it to the pursuit of interests, ideologies, and values or to ambition
and the quest for power. We assume that leaders have agency and are highly
motivated. But we largely ignore temperamental disposition and dismiss episodes
of severe self-doubt, boredom and melancholy. And yet, there seems to be an
intricate connection between melancholy and power that
may give leadership its distinctive edge and agency its depth.
In this course we shall try to disentangle this connection
philosophically, psychologically and sociologically. Much of what we will
discuss will only emerge in analysis. In this respect this course explores new
frontiers.
Readings
The following books can be purchased from the Bookmark on Spring Garden Road:
Samuel Beckett,
Endgame
Judith Butler, The Psychic Life of Power
Nassir Ghaemi, A First-Rate Madness
N. Machiavelli, The Prince
Jean-Paul Sartre,
Nausea
Shakespeare,
Hamlet
Further readings available from the internet or on reserve
will be announced in class.
Assignments and Grading
You will write two short essays (1000 words each) and one
major research essay (2500 words) as well as a final in-class exam. As far as
possible, summaries of each paper will be presented and discussed in class.
Emphasis is on your own ideas and perceptions.
The two short essays will be worth 20% each, the long essay
will be worth 50% and the exam will be worth 10% of the final grade. Your final
grade will also reflect active participation. All grades will be letter grades.
The penalty for unexcused late submission of assignments is
one full letter grade.
Plagiarism is a serious offence and will be dealt with
according to university rules.
The topic for the first essay: The Classical Iconography of Political Leadership
The topic for the second essay: Agency as a Remedy
The topic for the third essay: The Dialectics of Power and Melancholy
Outline
1)
Introduction:
The role of temperamental disposition in leadership and agency
2)
Albrecht Duerer’s Angel
and the Iconography of Melancholy
3)
Endgame: Samuel Beckett and the Totality of the
Present
4)
The Melancholy
Prince: Hamlet or the Stupidity of
Certainty
5)
Existential
Distemper: Arrogance and Boredom (J.P. Sartre)
6)
Fortune’s
Lover: Machiavelli’s Answer to
Contingency
7)
Between
Mourning and Anger: Freud’s Analysis
of Melancholy
(available from
the net at McGill’s in pdf format)
8)
Escaping
Submission: Judith Butler’s Radical
View of Agency
9)
Historical
Cases I: Nassir Ghaemi:
Parts I and II: Creativity and Realism
10) Historical Cases II: Nassir Ghaemi:
Parts III and IV: Empathy and Resilience
Joshua Wolf Shenk: Lincoln’s Great
Depression
(available
from the net at:
theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2005/10/Lincoln-apos… )
11) Historical Cases III: Nassir Ghaemi: Parts V and VI: Treatment and Mental Health
12) Coda: The Misery of Power: Temperament,
Leadership and Agency
Reproductions of Albrecht Duerer’s ‘Melencholia I’ and
Lucas Cranach
the Elder’s
‘Melancholia’
from the Web
gallery of Art
Books on Reserve
A. Gowland, The Worlds of Renaissance Melancholy
J. Kagan, Galen’s Prophecy
J. Kagan, The
Temperamental Thread
D.K. Kim, Melancholic Freedom
R. Klibansky , E. Panofsky and F.Saxl, Saturn and Melancholy
J. Kristeva, Black Sun
W. Lepenies, Melancholie
ud Gesellschaft
J. Radden ed., The
Nature of Melancholy
A. Solomon, The Noonday Demon
W. Styron, Darkness Visible
Material on the Net
For reproduction of images of melancholy use the Web Gallery
of Art at
http://www.wga.hu/index
1.html
On melancholy see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/two-factor_models_of_personality
As well as:http://erea.revues.org/413
(Ilit Ferber, Melancholy Philosophy: Freud
and Benjamin)
http://www.yorku.ca/jspot/4/beckett.html (Sandra Raponi,
Meaning
and Melancholy in Beckett’s “Endgame”)
http://edmj.medicine.dal.ca/archives/spring98/human4.htm
(Jeff Gatrall, Melancholia in A. Chekhov’s
“A Boring Story”)
Markers
(The
following is a loose set of notes summarizing arguments made in class. Books on
reserve are marked with (R) after the author’s name.)
I Context and Methodology
Melancholy
and Power is designed as workshop in political analysis and is
part of a series of seminars conducted at Dalhousie University over the past
seven years looking into the pathology of power. The purpose of these seminars
is an investigation into the pathological aspects of power as such rather than
into the abuse of power by those who exercise it. Among these aspects were the
creation of a second reality; the distortion of speech; the alienating effect
of systemic power; transgressive behavior; the
futility of power; and parataxis in language and conduct as a method and
inadvertent result of control.
In this
course we shall analyze the intimate relationship between power, spiritual and
secular, and melancholy as a state of mind often associated with an elevated
experience of success/failure in leadership and agency/empowerment.
Methodologically,
the course builds on the behavioral and clinical sciences but focuses on the
philosophical perspective offered by phenomenology and its off-shoots (e.g.
hermeneutics; critical theory; existentialism; iconology; and ethnomethodology). The reason for this approach is the need
to describe phenomena which are difficult to measure quantitatively.
The practical
purpose of this course is to reach a better understanding of the dark moments
of power which reveal the inner resources but also the abyss of critical
leadership.
The inquiry
begins with an inventory of templates of leadership, an overview of the
relevant psychological literature and the evolution of the concept of
melancholy. It continues with a tragicomic depiction of disillusionment, the
calamity, political and existential, of indecisiveness and destructive
introversion so that we will be able to read Machiavelli’s Prince in the context of the Renaissance cult of melancholy. After
that we shall examine more recent approaches to the melancholy of power in
light of the impact of trauma through injury or loss on the ability to act and
lead. Finally, we shall discuss concrete examples of leadership in distress.
II Unit One: The Role of Temperamental Disposition in Leadership and Agency
The Meaning,
Analysis, and Assessment of Leadership in Politics
In politics
(and political science) leadership is often taken for granted and
insufficiently analyzed. By and large, professional public relations
consultants and the media project an image of leadership that attempts to
convey closeness to, and at the same time, distance from the masses. Typically,
the projected aura of the leader combines the iconography of superiority and
modesty.
This
iconography incorporates ancient and modern templates of leadership and agency
handed down mostly in the canon of political theory and historical biography.
It
distinguishes between born leaders stressing humble origins and made leaders
stressing the integrity of the schooling. It also distinguishes between
spontaneous and institutionalized leadership depending on the regime design.
Spontaneous leadership emphasizes qualification to rule either through the gift
of charisma or the ethos of public service. The effectiveness of a given regime
thus depends on the integrity of its individual and/or collective leadership.
Institutionalized leadership, on the other hand, emphasizes the quality of institutionalized
rules to deal with and compensate for human error. In this case the integrity
of the regime depends on the integrity of its rules more than on the people
running it. Leadership is absorbed in the legal description of the powers of
office. Leaders are ‘officers’. Spontaneous leadership transcends and overrides
hierarchies. Institutionalized leadership sanctions hierarchies.
In Homer’s
‘Iliad’, for instance, leaders are military commanders and audacious fighters
mirroring divine idiosyncrasies. In Plato’s ‘Republic’ Thrasymachus
represents a perversion of the old warrior caste and is contrasted with the
construct of the philosopher king who symbolizes elementary functions of
‘professional’ leadership: charting a course, caring for one’s people, and
healing its wounds (captain, shepherd, physician).
These functions translate into the distinct qualities of leadership: vision,
empathy, and judgment. The philosopher king assembles them in his distinct
insight and foresight depicted in the image of the line of the four progressive
stages of cognition (VI.509 D – 511 E). Aristotle distinguishes between the strategos and the
demagogue. The power of the strategos is
constitutionally restrained while the power of the demagogue defies constitutional restraints. While Aristotle
stresses education as much as Plato, his demands include loyalty to the
constitution, administrative knowledge, rectitude and the will and ability to
serve justice (Politics, V. 1309 b – 1310 a). Machiavelli preserves aspects of
the warrior caste in his image of the Prince qua condottiere being at once a lion and a fox (The Prince, Ch. 18)
Together,
these ancient templates form the collective archetypes of leadership that still
inform the modern perception and assessment of leadership as for example in Max
Weber who distinguishes between three ‘ideal types’ of rule and legitimacy:
traditional, legal, and charismatic. Famously he concludes his lecture on
‘Politics as a Vocation’ given in 1918 in part in response to Leo Tolstoy with
the remark: ‘Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards. It takes both
passion and perspective. Certainly, all historical experience confirms the
truth – that man would not have attained the possible unless time and again he
has reached out for the impossible. But to do that a man must
be a leader, and not only a leader but a hero as well, in a very sober sense of
the word. … Only he has the calling for politics who
is sure that he shall not crumble when the world from his point of view is too
stupid or too base for what he wants to offer.’ (From Max Weber, p. 128)
Between the lines, Weber acknowledges the potential for melancholic distress in
the exercise of power as did Plato and Aristotle.
All templates
of leadership, including Sun Tzu (?400 – 320 BC) and Kautilya (around 300 BC), differentiate between governing,
ruling, commanding and managing. Only governing is truly political (Aristotle
sharply distinguishes between the exclusive powers of the despot or paterfamilias running a household (oikos) and the
shared power of the politician). It is at once less scripted than the other
forms and more comprehensive, an art rather than a function, and for that
reason more prone to melancholic fits. The iconography of leadership in art and
propaganda reveals collective archetypes in rigidly stylized features, posture,
dress and setting. Castles, official buildings, museums and public spaces house
huge galleries of monumental portraits, statues and the representative
furnishings of power. Rarely and only since the Renaissance do artists risk exposing
underneath the mask of power its brittleness and the repressed suffering of
those on whom it is bestowed.
On the
psychology of leadership
Today’s
understanding of leadership has been greatly influenced by primatology
and sociobiology. It is now common to
associate leadership with alpha males. Fascinating studies of primate behavior
have been undertaken by Frans deWaal.
His work has been influenced by the European school of ethology (animal behavior) pioneered by Konrad Lorenz, Nico Tinbergen,
and Karl von Frisch. Related but differently argued is the work by the
entomologist E.O. Wilson. Wilson greatly influenced sociobiology and interprets
leadership within the framework of natural selection.
Mostly,
however, the perception of leadership has been influenced by several schools of
psychological thinking. Among them we can distinguish between behaviorism (I.P.
Pavlov, B.F. Skinner) and learning theory (A. Bandura); cognitive development theory (Jean Piaget,
Lawrence Kohlberg); psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud , C. G. Jung and their
respective followers; Maslowian humanist psychology;
and McClelland’s theory of motivation. Often at odds with each other, they provide
a comprehensive theoretical grid to analyze, assess and improve leadership. Particularly
useful for the purpose of this course are the conceptions of development in
stages offered by Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg (cognitive development) and
Erik Erikson (psychoanalysis). Even more instructive is the psychoanalytic
concept of the narcissistic wound. It
is related to narcissistic rage,
which Heinz Kohut describes as a disproportionate
reaction to the experience of imperfection or failure. Melancholy may be
understood as a ritualized form of narcissistic rage.
Finally,
there is the attempt by Jerome Kagan to utilize the
ancient teachings on temperamental disposition for the study of character and
cognition.
On melancholy
Melancholy
must be distinguished from depression. While it has been recognized, described and
treated as a mental illness since antiquity, it is possible to look at it not
only from a clinical point of view. It can be described either as a mood
disorder and treatable condition that is experienced momentarily or
repetitively, or as a personality and character trait in form of a
temperamental disposition, in which case it should not subject to outside intervention,
medical or otherwise – unless, of course, one endorses externally induced
personality (not just attitude or behavior) change (in former Soviet parlance:
’the engineering of souls’). In this regard, it is precisely the pathological
aspect that contains the particular reservoir of strengths sought after in leadership
and agency. Treating creativity kills it. (The Danish film director Lars van
Trier made this quite clear on the occasion of premiering his new film
‘Melancholia’.)
It is not so
much the incidental depression of a leader or the momentary depression after a
disappointment that should interest us in this course but the intimate connection
between melancholy and power. It is important in this regard how time and space
are experienced; how interest is mediated by affection; and how action is
scripted and conscience recognized.
Literature
Albert Bandura, Social Learning Theory (1977)
J. MacGregor Burns, Leadership (1978)
Erik Erikson,
Identity, Youth and Crisis (1968)
_______________,
Gandhi’s Truth (1969)
_______________,
Young Man Luther (1958)
Keith Grint, Leadership. A very Short Introduction (2010)
Stanley W. Jackson, Melancholia and Depression. From
Hippocratic Times
To
modern Times (1986)
Abraham H.
Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being, Second Ed. (1968)
Stephen A. Mitchell and Margaret J. Black, Freud and Beyond. A History of
Modern
Psychoanalytical
Thought (1995)
Jerome Kagan, Galen’s Prophecy
Lawrence
Kohlberg, The Philosophy of Moral Development (1981)
Heinz Kohut, The Analysis of the Self
(1971)
______________,
The Restoration of the Self (1977)
David
McClelland, The Achievement Motive (1953)
____________________,
The Achieving Society (1961)
____________________,
Power: The Inner Experience (1975)
____________________,
Power is the Great Motivator (2008)
Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power (1990)
I.P. Pavlov,
Conditional Reflexes (1927)
Jean Piaget, The Moral Judgment of the Child (1965)
B.F. Skinner,
Science and Human Behavior (1953)
______________,
Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971)
Lionel Tiger,
Men in Groups (1969)
Lionel Tiger,
The Imperial Animal (1971)
Peter Toohey, Boredom. A Lively History (2011)
Frans de Waal,
Good Natured. The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans
and Other Animals (1996)
_________________,
Chimpanzee Politics (1982)
J.B. Watson, ‘Psychology
as the Behaviorist Sees It’ (1913)
E.O. Wilson,
Sociobiology (1975)
_____________,
On Human Nature (1978)
III Unit Two: Albrecht Duerer’s Angel and the Iconography
of Melancholy
Diagram of
the Tempers (from Stanley W. Jackson, p. 9)
Yellow Bile – Fire – Summer
Hot
Dry
Blood – Air –
Spring Black Bile –
Earth – Autumn
Moist
Cold
Phlegm – Water – Winter
In Renaissance
painting the most frequent depiction of angels appears in the highly popular
motif of the annunciation where an
angel holding a lily appears to Mary and announces that she will bear the Son
of God (combining the medieval cult of Mary with the Renaissance /Humanist topos of the New Age). In these paintings Mary is usually
seated to the left of the approaching angel (standing or kneeling). Duerer’s depiction of melancholy plays on this motif and
varies it. His angel collapses Mary and the angel and replaces the posture of
devoutness and surprise with one of willfulness and resignation. The contrast
within as well as between these images is important for understanding the
effect of the engraving. In Duerer’s engraving the
angel is at once a being from heaven and earth barely reconciling the polarity
or tension between impetuosity and submission. In this as well as through the
symbols of key and purse the angel signifies power (see Klibansky
e.a. (R)) as well as its temperamental extremes and
instability. This is further accentuated by the symbols for the astrological
juxtaposition of Saturn and Jupiter (see Klibansky e.a. (R)), Saturn being the planet associated with the coming
and reversal of good fortune and Jupiter being the planet associated with
restoration (both powerful motifs in Machiavelli’s Prince and Shakespeare’s Hamlet).
The rainbow and the illumination of the sky (at dusk!) by a comet signals the passing
of a crisis and the onset of divine intervention or, in terms of the melancholic
disposition, the precipitous shift from sadness to elation; despair to hope;
dullness of affect to sharpness of desire; doubt to faith; and fear to confidence.
In two other
engravings (‘Knight, Death and the Devil’ and ‘St. Jerome in his Study’) Duerer produced around the same time, he depicts the practical
and intellectual virtues separately in the Knight and St. Jerome respectively
and untroubled by melancholy (see Web Gallery of Art, Duerer,
engravings 1511-1519). In ‘Melencholia I’ they are
depicted in conjunction through the figure of the angel as attributes of power.
The engraving enriches our understanding of power as does the prolific
literature on melancholy during the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and
Romanticism (cf. D. Borchmeyer,A. Gowland
(R), Klibansky (R), W. Lepenies
(R), J. Radden (R), H.-J. Schings,
T. Valk). Precisely if and when power comprises
practical and intellectual virtues it is programmed for melancholic fits. This also seems to be expressed in Cranach’s
painting (one of many versions) where the introvert yet seductive figure (quite
unlike Duerer’s angel) in the foreground whittles
away on a stick seemingly disinterested in the play of the children, the
partridges, the fruit on the table but in a provocative correspondence with the
apocalyptic cloud in the left upper corner. Here melancholy is depicted in its
proximity to transgressive and restive behavior – the
moment when power is on the skids (quite differently from being derailed by
arrogance). If Duerer reveals the spirited moment of
melancholy in power, Cranach shows the narcissist side of melancholy in power.
Literature
C. Fred
Alford, Narcissism (1988
Dieter Borchmeyer, macht und Me;lancholie: Schillers
Wallenstein (1988))
H.H. Geerth and C. Wright Mills (Eds.), From Max Weber: Essays
in Sociology (1946)
Robert Kegan, The Evolving Self.
Problem and
Process in Human Development
(1982)
H.-J. Schings, Melancholie und Aufklaerung (1977)
Thorsten Valk, Melancholie im Werk Goethes
(2002)