A sense of personal grievance can turn a quiet gentleman into a political fighter
Evidence
The stockbroker was W. Kingsland Macy, a tall, slender former Harvard Crimson editor one year older than Moses, who invariably wore starched high round collars and dark-blue suits with vest, and often pince-nez. Not wealthy, but well off, Macy seemed, with his seat on the Exchange, his modest but well-tended East Islip estate and his love of antiques and old houses, the very model of the country gentleman, except that, unlike brother-in-law Havemeyer and the other members of the Timber Point Club, he was noticeably uninterested in making money. As one observer of his career was to write, “All the while he had a vague idea that he would like to enter politics, but he did not know how to go about it.” And since he was an unsmiling man with the thin, tight-pressed lips of the ascetic, very reserved even with friends, it seemed unlikely that he would find out. But, as the observer was to write, “No man living excels Macy in the capacity for appreciating an outrage that has been perpetrated against his rights. He cherished and cultivated his wrongs as other men worship Old Masters.” — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 818
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: A political mentor can convert an uncompromising idealist into a pragmatic operative — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 595; Personal biographical grievance can directly produce ideological hatred — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 556; Repressed unhappiness can be mobilized as political support for domination — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 337 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Personal biographical grievance can directly produce ideological hatred
#corroborates(0.82) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 556 - Political silence often masks latent resentment that erupts when opportunity arises.
#qualifies(0.80) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 1634 - Repressed unhappiness can be mobilized as political support for domination
#qualifies(0.78) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 337 - Politicization requires blaming an external opponent for one’s grievances.
#expands(0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4429