Politics, ambiguity and righteousness
March 6, 2021
Steven Spielberg’s ‘Lincoln’ is one of my favourite films of all time; Daniel Day-Lewis’ dazzling performance as the titular character and my general love for Lincoln as a political figure being just two of the many reasons. But perhaps the most important reason is that it is arguably the finest depiction of how real political situations require the ability to constantly juggle between contradictory principles; how each of these principles, no matter how unsavoury they seem to us, has validity for the group that subscribes to them; and that even the most noble of deeds require actions that are morally ambiguous. In other words, it is a quintessential work on modern democratic politics.