In early 2022, from the safety of my office in academia’s ivory tower, I periodically tuned in to the scenes of Canadian truckers gathering outside Canada’s Parliament. I also saw the disgust with which these protestors were greeted by elites in government and the media across North America. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, so this narrative went, was being harried by a band of white nationalist truckers. But in the end, so their narrative went, Trudeau deftly used emergency powers and the police to suppress the conspiracy.
The political furor over the trucker protests has died down, Trudeau has left the political scene in Canada, and the passage of time has left room for reflection. As a member of the elite myself, a tenured professor, I, of course, turned to the works of William Shakespeare.
The clash between the elite and the common people that played out in Canada reminded me again and again of Shakespeare’s play Pericles, Prince of Tyre. The play not only provides political insights into this episode in Canadian politics, but also exposes some of the sources of the uniquely broken relationship between elites and the common people in today’s technologically advanced democracies. The divide between the elites and the common people has been present since the first chieftain led a raid on his stone-age neighbors. Political communities need leadership. For almost as long, this divide has been exploited by political movements from populists in the Roman Republic to international communists in the twentieth century. In the information age, however, this divide has become starker than ever. Elites can wrap themselves in social media echo chambers that flatter their pride and cut them off from almost any contact with those they lead, upon whom the elite depend for their privileged lifestyles.
Unsurprisingly, William Shakespeare was no stranger to this class divide, and it is a constant theme in his plays. Perhaps ironically, through a play set in the pagan Greek world, Shakespeare reminds us of the Christian perspective on political authority, one based in servant leadership that today’s elites need to recapture. Of course, that task is made more difficult by ubiquitous social media and its distortion of reality. But perhaps the Bard’s enduring wisdom can show us how to achieve it in our own time.
Pericles, Prince of Tyre is one of Shakespeare’s least known plays. Rarely performed or discussed today, it was, however, his most popular play in his lifetime. Something in this play resonated with the people of England. It was an exciting adventure story, of course, but audiences also saw in it some reflections of their common experience. And even now, centuries after it was first staged, the kind of humble virtues Shakespeare extols in the play are necessary for good government in a free society.
The Canadian truckers dared to remind Parliament that their positions were granted by the will of the people, and the people set limits on their powers.
In the play, Shakespeare’s protagonist, the good Prince Pericles, is chased into exile by a powerful, evil king who wants the prince’s head. During his escape, Pericles is shipwrecked and washes ashore in a strange land. Though a prince, he is now without possessions, bereft even of the shirt on his back. As he wanders the desolate shore in search of aid, he comes upon a group of fishermen mending their nets and asks for their assistance. They offer to share their fire and food. Many of those who visited with the protesters outside of the Canadian Parliament reported a similar hospitality on display, as they welcomed those who joined them to ask questions and shared warm refreshments in the midst of a frigid Ottawa winter. This, of course, belied the picture painted by the media of the truckers and their supporters as a band of violent extremists.
The fishmen provide this same simple hospitality to the incognito Prince Pericles. As the small group converses by the fire, a nearby fisherman exclaims that he’s hauling in a huge catch that threatens to burst his nets, and the interlocutors rush to his aid. Instead of a great catch of fish, however, the net has plucked Pericles’s armor from the depths. As this unlikely story proceeds, Pericles dons the armor and uses it in a jousting tournament to earn the hand in marriage of a noble maiden. This is followed by the birth of their royal daughter, her near-death at sea, her kidnapping by pirates, her life in captivity, and her final tearful reunion with her mother and father. All’s well that ends well.
From my first reading of the play, I was captivated by the image of the fishmen catching Pericles’s armor. In many ways, this scene illustrates some permanent truths about politics, truths with which our political elites must become reacquainted. By virtue of their authority, leaders stand over ordinary people within the political community. This hierarchy, however, obscures the reality that those leaders cannot stand without the support of ordinary people. It is only through the labor of the common people that rulers and the political community are sustained with the necessities of life.
This is one of the truths that communism exploited so successfully in the twentieth century, when its ideologues promised a world in which the worker would no longer be exploited by the elites. Instead, communist revolutionaries used the popular power of this truth and the propaganda of equality to establish regimes dominated by an even narrower and brutal, unaccountable elite. The horrors of the resulting political systems, which fell disproportionately on ordinary people, are unmatched in modern history. Despite the nefarious purposes to which the communists have exploited this truth, it remains true. As the naked Pericles discovers on the seashore, the few elites cannot survive without the labor of the many.
On a spiritual level, Shakespeare’s audience watching this scene—a collection of both the elite and the common people—would have caught the reference to the first disciples, mending their nets by the Sea of Galilee when Jesus calls them to follow Him. And as the excited fisherman hauled up his weighty catch, the audience would have caught the reference to Peter incredulously “putt[ing] out into the deep” at Christ’s behest and the miraculous catch, by which Peter knew he was in the presence of the Son of God. That presence called him to humility and contrition: “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Oh Lord.” Jesus replies with that most common of all divine preambles: “Do not be afraid.” In a play on these biblical images, Shakespeare’s fishermen catch Pericles’s armor and set him on the path to the redemption of his honor and elite station. The prince’s return to power would have been impossible without the hospitality and honest labor of these simple fishermen; here, Shakespeare brings to our minds the model of servant leadership based in humility and a recognition of our common dependence on one another.
In many ways, the truckers who protested against Covid-era restrictions are much like Shakespeare’s humble fishermen—through their labors, these workers make all of our endeavors possible. Since the trucker protests, when I travel the interstates of the US, commuting to campus to teach and research political science, I’ve started to notice trucks and truckers more. Is there a class of laborers that is more overlooked and more essential than truckers? As we, the laptop class, the elite of our communities, rush to work, we’re annoyed by the delays they cause us. Though how often have we stopped to think that every piece of food we pluck from the grocery store shelf or piece of clothing we pluck from the rack was delivered by those same people? Without these bleary-eyed blue-collar workers, the shelves at the grocery store, and our stomachs, would be empty. Yet we overlook them so easily and see them as an inconvenience. Covid made this divide even starker, as the elites isolated in the comfort of their homes and worked remotely, while those who live from paycheck to paycheck continued to work to provide the goods that made our splendid isolation possible.
All of Canada, and the world, stood up and took notice, however, when the convoy of truckers began its ponderous journey to Ottawa, to the seat of Canadian government, where Justin Trudeau, author of the vaccine mandate, sat secure in his political echo chamber. As the convoy crossed through the country in the dead of winter, Canadians came out to the highway by the thousands to stand in the bitter cold and cheer them on. The fact that so many came out in weather that would freeze exposed skin in a few minutes was a testament to their enthusiasm for the truckers’ cause. No doubt it galled Trudeau to see the opponents of his mandate mobilizing Canadians to an extent he could only dream.
I was shocked and pleasantly surprised by the spirit that the truckers inspired in ordinary Canadians. In fact, as I watched the Canadian lockdowns and vaccine mandates broaden and deepen from my home in Texas, I began to suspect that, against all odds, Canadians still had the instincts of a free people. Historically, Canadians are a proud people. They are a people who sent thousands of their young men across the Atlantic to fight in both world wars, years before American boys would make the same journey. Their fighting prowess in both those wars made them a boon to their friends and a scourge to their enemies. They were, as one author expressed it, the “shock army of the British Empire.” In fact, may consider World War I as the beginning of the Canadian nation, when a Canadian army that fought as one showed the world that it was one people. It was this fighting spirit that I thought had been blunted by decades of peace and ease. Then Canada’s truckers showed me that even the quiet, polite Canadians could only be pushed so far before fighting back.
Isolated elites are much less likely to see errors, learn from them, and grow in humility if we don’t seek out the voices of those with whom we disagree.
When the truckers surrounded the Parliament buildings and began their protest, the Prime Minister refused to meet with them. The truckers had dared to break into the bubble that the elites had made for themselves. They dared to remind them that their positions were granted by the will of the people, and the people set limits on their powers. The lockdowns had thickened the walls of the echo chambers that elites inhabit on social media in the information age, as algorithms flatter them into self-satisfaction and isolate them from criticism.
In a scene between Pericles and the lords of his court, Shakespeare provides an image of the kind of councel that elites should seek. All Pericles’s court wish him peace and comfort, save Lord Helicanus, who is determined to speak his mind to the Prince:
They do abuse the king that flatter him,
For flattery is the bellows blows up sin;
The thing the which is flatter’d but a spark,
To which that blast gives heat and stronger glowing;
Whereas reproof, obedient and in order,
Fits kings, as they are men, for they may err.
Helicanus concludes that the one who flatters “makes war upon your life.”
After the counselor finishes his invective against the flattery of the other lords, Pericles sends away most of the lordly companions, but bids Helicanus stay behind; the other lords no doubt presuming the prince will dress down the insubordinate Helicanus in private. Helicanus thinks as much too when Pericles opens their private conversation by echoing the infamous words of Pontius Pilate: “Thou know’st I have power to take thy life from thee.” The brave Helicanus replies: “I have ground the axe myself; do but you strike the blow.” Seeing that the noble’s loyalty is as firm as his honesty, Pericles bids him:
Rise, prithee, rise;
Sit down, thou art no flatterer;
I thank thee for’t; and heaven forbid
That kings should let their ears hear their faults hid!
Fit counsellor and servant for a prince,
Who by thy wisdom makes a prince thy servant,
What would’st thou have me do?
The algorithms that curate our social media feeds are bottomless fonts of flattery. The elite class can draw all their information about the outside world and their standing in it from these whitewashed platforms. The continuous stream of affirmation can make them incredulous of those who disagree with their decisions, labeling them radicals on the fringe of society, as Trudeau and his inner circle did with the truckers. We isolated elites are much less likely to see our errors, learn from them, and grow in humility if we don’t seek out the voices of those with whom we disagree.
Unfortunately, to borrow an analogy from the pandemic, today, with the help of social media, our political elites and their supporters have immunized themselves against those lessons. One way to break this cycle of flattery is a return to the wisdom of writers like Shakespeare, who provide timeless truths that can humble our egos and provide a north star to help us navigate even the treacherous currents of the information age.
