In "Dave" (1993), Kevin Kline plays Dave Kovic, a kind, decent man who happens to be a dead ringer for the current President of the United States (also played by Kline), himself a corrupt, carousing, cynical politician. When the President literally brings himself into a coma while sneaking a quickie with a sweet young thing, the chief of staff (Frank Langella), enlists Kovic as a temporary stand-in. And stand in he does, eventually wresting control of the presidency from the cagey chief of staff, who has malevolent presidential aspirations of his own, and placing it in the capable hands of the vice president (Ben Kingsley), another kind, decent fellow.
“Dave” vividly illustrates a point repeatedly made by Stephen King, perhaps most obviously in the magnificent "The Stand": the world would be a far better place if led by those unassuming, decent people who would never, by their own devices, occupy positions of power. In "The Stand", Stuart Redman, a quiet East Texan, is good with his hands and possesses loads of common sense, but never amounts to much. However, when "Captain Trips", a superflu originating in a U.S. government biological weapons laboratory, fatally infects over 99% of the world's population and civilization ceases to exist, Redman's handyman skill set, considerate nature and unobtrusive intelligence make him an extremely valuable resource, a natural leader and a key contributor to the eventual triumph of good over evil. If people like Redman would have been in charge to begin with, King implies, “Captain Trips” would have never even been developed.
"It is the man who does not want to express an opinion whose opinion I want", said Abraham Lincoln. I would add (to coin a phrase), “It is the person who is not interested in power that I want in power.” But although it was probably not difficult for Mr. Lincoln to elicit reluctant opinions, positions of power are rarely occupied by those who, like the fictional Kovic and Redman, do not actively pursue them but are most qualified to fulfill them. Because the qualifications required to obtain power are different from those required to wield it fairly and effectively. Besides, human nature is such that even fair and decent people who somehow attain power without seeking it will eventually end up abusing it since, in the words of John Dalberg-Acton, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”
And that is our conundrum, our evolutionary dead end as a species. We have evolved into intelligent beings and survived during the past 200,000 years, perhaps partly due to our greed and aggressive nature. However, those same qualities seem destined to inexorably precipitate our downfall. The combativeness, short-term thinking and callous disregard for others typical of humans in general and most particularly of those who attain positions of power have already come close to wiping out our species. Even if we somehow avoid a large scale catastrophe, we will, due to those same qualities, make our planet inhospitable to us long before we develop the technologies necessary to either repair the damage or colonize elsewhere.
Homo Sapiens, then, is one of Natural Selection’s duds: a short-lasting species that will destroy itself while the cockroaches, sharks, tardigrades and lingulas (among many others) live on, oblivious to the appearance and disappearance of a species that was only around for a miniscule fraction of their own time on Earth, and that, despite its promise and potential, turned out to be nothing more than an inconsequential footnote in the history of the planet.
