When Lord Acton wrote his deathless phrase, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” to his friend Bishop Creighton, he was referring to the corruption not just of officeholders but of the people around them — the historians and intellectuals who were tempted by what he called the “heresy” that “the office sanctifies the holder of it.”
Like bacon in the knuckles of a dog handler, power reliably brings intellectuals to heel. Intellectuals often have the arrogance that comes with learning or a lifetime of being praised as clever but usually lack the discipline and will to build real enterprises of their own. They are attracted to it and seek positions in the court to influence its exercise. They imagine their whines and yelps vaguely coax some of the responses from their masters.
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