The Bible points to the love of money as the root of all kinds of evil. Not money itself, but our desire for it and to acquire more of it, which can lead to an abandonment of moral principles and right actions. But always running a close second in those root causes has been the love of fame and influence. Better known in antiquity as glory.
In Ephesus in 356 B.C., legend has it, the Temple of Diana, known also as the Temple of Artemis, stood as the greatest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World until a man named Herostratus burned it down to make a name for himself.
To deprive him of that recognition, the citizens of Ephesus executed him and then ed a law forbidding any mention of the name Herostratus on penalty of death.
Scholars now question that story. Nevertheless, consider the irony: Today we know of Herostratus but not one of his accs.
People still do outrageous things to make themselves known or to burnish their image and hold onto notoriety, particularly people in power and their closest associates.
America is not immune.
In 1881, right after Chester A. Arthur became president, doctors diagnosed him with Bright’s disease, a potentially fatal kidney ailment. Arthur and his aides told no one about it. He went on to champion civil service reform.
Surgeons on a yacht clandestinely removed a cancerous tumor from President Grover Cleveland, along with part of his palate.
Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy each had health issues that threatened their time in office but along with staff, they said nothing.
In his book, My Father at 100: A Memoir, Ron Reagan contends he noticed his father’s Alzheimer’s condition three years into his first term. The late president’s staff still denies it.
A single debate during our last presidential election revealed a decline in President Joe Biden’s cognitive skills his advisors had to have known about all along.
Like our love of money, access to power and fame changes people. Out of loyalty or a desire to hold onto influence, it also changes the advice they get from the people closest to them.
President Donald Trump’s detractors are already making that argument about him and the people with whom he has surrounded himself.
It brings to mind Hans Christian Andersen’s 1837 fable, “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
Surely you the story of the narcissistic ruler with an insatiable compulsion for new clothes.
Counterfeit peddlers masquerading as tailors dupe him into believing they can weave him garments of unmatched quality and style — designs so magical only those gifted people worthy of whatever position they hold can see them. For the incompetent rest of the world, the apparel remains invisible.
The eager emperor immediately showers the insincere seamsters with money for a new wardrobe, then regularly sends his ministers to check on the progress. Seeing nothing on the fake tailors’ looms but fearing the label “incompetent,” they tell stories of beholding dazzling fabric and magnificent attire.
Later, during a private viewing, the emperor himself also perceives no material. However, equally terrified of being publicly revealed as incompetent, the monarch heaps praise on the two malefactors.
When he finally steps out in public fully resplendent in his new royal “accoutrements,” the whole town also sees no fancy attire — only the emperor waving with elegance while clad only in his birthday suit.
But again, fearful of the consequences of being declared useless or inept, they acknowledge him, returning his gesture. It ends when one honest little boy, astonished at the sight and silence, loudly roars that the emperor is naked.
Like Andersen’s 19th-century fairy tale, for years in our time plenty of “honest little boys and girls” have shouted out about our leaders and their policies, begging the rest of us to believe our lying eyes. Sadly, for whatever reason, most have preferred not to listen.
In our time as much as any, the love of fame or influence can spin up into a toxic mixture spurring actions devoid of wisdom particularly among those in power, or those who seek it, or their close associates.
University of Alabama criminal justice professor Adam Lankford researched suicide terrorists and noted, “In places like Palestine, they get celebrity treatment. There are murals in the neighborhoods of previous suicide attackers.”
And it is not just the powerful or seekers of notoriety seekers who fall victim. Lankford cites a Pew Research study that concluded, “51 percent of Americans age 18 to 25 said that being famous is one of their generation’s most important goals in life.”
There appears little difference between being famous and being infamous. Our culture will endorse honor or dishonor, valor or villainy — so long as, in the end, the luminary stands at the center of attention. We worry about what that says about our future when in fact it tells us little has changed.
Toward the end of the 19th century, Britain’s Lord Acton famously warned, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” That is still true.
So is the Bible dictum that the love of money is the root of all evil. Perhaps here in the 21st century we might want to consider a codicil reminding us that, when it comes to speaking truth to whatever emperor sits on the throne, the desire to ignore what is unfolding right in front of us for the sake of money, power or fame will exact a heavy price.