We live in an anti-political moment, when many people —— young people especially —— think politics is a low, nasty, corrupt and usually fruitless business. It's much nobler to do community service or just avoid all that putrid noise.
I hope everybody who shares this anti-political mood will go out to see "Lincoln". The movie portrays the nobility of politics in exactly the right way. It also shows that you can do more good in politics than in any other sphere. But you can achieve these things only if you are willing to stain your own character in order to serve others —— if you are willing to bamboozle, trim, compromise and be slippery and hypocritical.
The challenge of politics lies precisely in the marriage of high vision and low cunning. The hero has a high moral vision, but he also has the courage to take morally hazardous action in order to make that vision a reality.
Politics is noble because it involves personal compromise for the public good. This is a self-restrained movie that celebrates people who are prudent, self-disciplined,ambitious and tough enough to do that work.
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If anything, the movie understates how hard politics can be. The moral issue here is a relatively clean one: slavery or no slavery. Most issues are not that simple.
Politics doesn't produce many Lincolns, but it does produce some impressive people, and sometimes, great results.
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