Title

The wish for kings : democracy at bay

Description

For the better part of twenty years Lewis H. Lapham has sketched the American social and political landscape with a fine sense of history and a sharp and caustic wit. In The Wish for Kings, his most provocative book to date, Lapham obliges us to take a long hard look at what has become of our hallowed democratic tradition. Although we like to believe that we live by Lincoln's famous words - "government of the people, by the people, for the people" - we have become accustomed to a government by and for the friends of privilege. The promise of democracy is synonymous with the idea of the citizen, but to people who have grown tired of self-government the belief in kings and queens and fairy tales replaces the will to engage in the rude and often uncomfortable arts of politics. Lapham notes the effects of our distaste for objection and dissent - an apathetic public debate, 90 percent of the wealth in the hands of 5 percent of the population, the media and the universities united in their defense of oligarchy - and discusses at length the ways in which a courtier spirit (the obverse of the democratic spirit) subverts and weakens the hopes of a free republic. It is a discussion that has particular relevance to the present moment. If the wish for kings is as old as Babylon and as modern as the worship of Hollywood celebrity, our 1992 presidential election translated the wish into nineteen million votes for H. Ross Perot. Frightened by the weakness in the economy and dissatisfied with the wisdom in office in Washington, a sizable percentage of the electorate embraced in the figure of a Texas millionaire what it imagined to be the comforts of autocracy. The question remains as to whether the enthusiasm for Perot was merely an angry protest against a government that had arrogantly distanced itself from the American people, or whether it expressed a more general longing for a magical figure capable of quieting all our fears and answering all our prayers. The question is an urgent one, and it defines the task of the Clinton administration. Unless President Clinton can sustain the public faith in the practice as well as the theory of Democracy, it is possible that the idea of democratic self-government will come to be seen as a once noble experiment no longer adequate to the specifications of the twenty-first century. The several facets of this question come into brilliant focus in this important book by one of our most incisive social critics. No one who cares about the future of our nation should miss reading The Wish for Kings.

Identifier

1082327

802114466

Creator

Lapham, Lewis H

Format

1st ed.

Source

Brian Lamb Booknotes Collection

Gift of Brian Lamb, 2011.

Catalog record

Language

eng

Date

1993

Program air date: August 15, 1993.

Publisher

Grove Press

George Mason University. Libraries. Special Collections & Archives

Text

Transcription of Annotations
Notes on front endpapers: Courtier. Oligarchy. Doesn't like Henry Kissinger. Celebrity. May 1990--St. John the Devine--Tribute to Havel--169. Dinner for the Homeless--182. Teddy White-209. Underlinings/notes: Fall of Communism. Forgotten middle class. Came to buy votes, assumed audience as cynical as themselves. Election was about what was in it for me--candidate, voter, purveyor of public opinion polls. Established new media. Mass revolt. Tony Lewis, David Brooks, Roger Ailes. Safire, Blunenthal. Kevin Phillips. Oligarchy. Rich. People who manage government, own media and banks, operate universities, print money, write laws. Savings and Loan. 20 years! Bush--violent feeling of disgust. Country clubs. Fireman. Bush State of the Union. President talked mostly about his beloved war in Iraq. Attempt at genuine emotion proved unctuous and vacant. Clinton/money state. Perot and money--populist billionaire. Clinton and the adoring media. Clinton a liar. John Jay, John Adams, James Madison. Business and the free market. Politicians & Money. Heritage Policy Review 4 percent. 39 percent on dole. American government increasingly secret government conducted behind closed doors. Questions now beyond comprehension of most men. Consensus/nonpartisan. Politics brings odor of something low, rotten, mean. Balance no longer exists. Reagan didn't know anything. Congress offered itself for sale to the highest bidder. Despise theory/practice of democracy. Lady at dinner party. Wedding. Artist exhibition--curfew on all blacks living north of East 96th St. Clinton's promises. Adams--pride/vanity of Britain a disease. Clinton and TV show. Inaugural pageant--$17 million. Founders of American Republic detested dance of grace and favor. Courtier spirit. Tax code 6,956 pages. by 1992 only 4 percent of American people self-employed. Perot. Perfect courtier--avoids traps of friendship, always displays moderation/restraint; conversation principal occupation of court; dress in expensive but sober matter, obey sovereign rule of appearances. Clinton/Bush both courtiers. Bush's friends/Clinton's. Prudence, caution, coldness of heart. Zoe Baird. Liz Taylor. Book praise. AEI/Brookings. Average pay of company chair exceeded pay of average worker by ratio of 93 to 1. Country clubs. Nelson Rockefeller/Henry Kissinger; David Rockefeller/Zbigniew Brzezinski--advice usually wrong, judgment skewed to advancement of their own careers. General Norman Schwarzkopf. NYC books knowledge level. Harvard, Stanford, Michigan. Giamatti on the train--as president of Yale, no longer had luxury of making candid remarks on subjects that might be controversial. Kissinger--self-promotion. Richard Darman. Dershowitz great reputation but only 9 wins/39 losses. Reagan and the debt. Unknown physicist. Courtier believes because he must believe. Washington and every place else. Jack Kent Cooke. Robert Strauss. CIA. DC tone of voice. World Bank--$120,000 salary. Business class vs. 1st class--Michael Irwin. Nancy Reagan bed and red. Friend in Washington--Senator's AA. Moynihan on radio show. Facade of government. Gates/CIA. Justice Thomas. Clinton's appointments. Ron Brown. Robert Rubin. Bob Gray. PAC's. Plumber. Fulltime politicians. Stu Eizenstat. I.F. Stone. Gridiron Dinner. Weinberger review of Tom Clancy. Private v. Public. Sununu. Mosbacher entrance on 15th St. Reagan to Japan. White House. Liberal Press. Media tells audience what they already know. Media endorsed Clinton. Decorous facade of government. Clarence Thomas. Lapman's philosophy--America of savings and loan swindle and fraudulent defense contract, America defaced by crowded prisons/wretched schools, America that lies to itself about prosperity from an economic policy that places an intolerable burden on the weak, old, poor, ignorant, young, sick. Best defense is raucous/belligerent press. Began as trade reporter for San Francisco Examiner and New York Herald Tribune--occasional Washington Post columnist. Worked for Tribune 1960-1962. Press vanity. 1965 contract writer for the Saturday Evening Post. No off the record. Defection from court etiquette not well received by White House press corps. Johnson White House--April-June 1965. White House Press Corps. Press--self-important. Access is all. Bob Woodward. Deep background. Ladies/gentlemen of fourth estate know that they are interchangeable. Drug War/Gulf War. Bush war on drugs. 1989--six weeks between 1 Aug-13 Sept--3 TV networks combined with NYT and Washington Post produced 347 reports on crack in the cities, cocaine in the suburbs. Gulf War. 3 August--Washington besieged with reports of Hussein's chemical/biological weapons, rise in price of oil, nuclear fire, thousands of body bags being sent to Saudi Arabia--all exaggerated. Conservative bias of the media. Dan Rather salute. Newscasters indistinguishable from sportscasters. Harper's MacArthur to Rather. Suck up coverage. Checks and balances. Kennedy. Johnson--appetite for power; Nixon too obviously bourgeois; Carter--more disappointing than Nixon; Reagan expressed serene calm; Bush could not sustain image of godlike ease. Perot. God & Elvis. Donahue/Barbara Walters. Harry Truman. Celebrity--being, not becoming. Media training sessions. $10,000--hired public relations counsel. Stupidity of the hosts. People don't read. Judge Thomas. Havel. Milos Forman, Placido Domingo, Paul Newman, Susan Sarandon, Arthur Miller, Henry Kissinger, Barbara Walters, Saul Bellows. Hinckley. Ford's Theater. Pagan worship of rock singers/anchorpersons. Perot. US largest prison population in the Western world. New York, dinner for homeless. Lapham friend. Lost enterprise. New World Order--post-cold war world looks like medieval Europe. New technologies. S&L 500 billion dollars. Nicholas Brady. Book jackets. Giscard dinner. Congressional perks. Richard Darman.

Subject

"Elite (Social sciences)--United States."

"Income distribution--United States."

"Democracy--United States."

"Political culture--United States."

Relation

Original Booknotes interview

Booknotes Oral History Project interview

Rights

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