James Bowden's Blog

What Is the Significance of Being a Bad Apple?

Over the last three years or so, I’ve noticed a strange quirk in the debates over police brutality in the United States. Proponents of the police often couch their support in an analogy, which they intend to mean, “Some police officers do bad things, but in general, they are good and do good and shouldn’t all be dismissed as bad simply because some of them are bad.” They mention something about “a few bad apples,” normally without completing the sentence, which makes evaluating the origin of the analogy more difficult.

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Peter Baelish infamously described chaos as a ladder which he will climb; in reality, Baelish is not worthy of breaking the wheel, and he’s merely going around in circles. He will soon meet the bad end of fortuna.

George R.R. Martin confirms in this BBC documentary, “Who’s Afraid of Machiavelli?” that The Prince heavily influenced his writing of A Song of Ice and Fire and the general depiction of political intrigue amongst the lords of Westeros.

Some of Machiavelli’s most important and famous lessons on governing come from chapters 15 to 19 of The Prince; they cover those things for which men and especially princes are praised or blamed, of generousness and parsimony, whether it is better to be loved than feared, how the Prince should keep faith, and how to avoid being hated. The quotes below come from Mansfield’s English-language translation of The Prince). 

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In Book VI of The Republic, Plato likened governing a polis to piloting a ship. Plato’s interlocutor, Socrates, invoked this ancient parable to explain why the ship’s unassuming star-gazing navigator represents the philosopher-king who possesses the best qualities — namely, the knowledge — to pilot the ship, despite his not vying for the role against the other squabbling sailors, who represent demagogues. Thence comes the age-old observation that those best suited to wield political power are normally those who do not seek it or actively avoid it.

This has since become known as the “Ship of State” metaphor. I suppose that the appellation of “State” in “The Ship of State” came later than Plato, because, as far as I understand, the meaning and use of “the State” as a word for a type of polity dates from Early Modern Europe — and perhaps even from Machiavelli himself, who popularized the term in The Prince (“estato” in Italian) — rather than from the Ancients and the third century BC when Plato and Aristotle wrote.

A thought occurred to me recently which seems worth sharing. I’m not invoking the Ship of State metaphor in the way that Plato did (as an allegory for the philosopher-king and good government); instead, I’m invoking the superficial use of the metaphor and looking at the State itself rather than at the qualities necessary for the captain who would pilot the ship most ably of all those who vie to steer it.

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