The point of "Ivers "is that the boy from the wrong side of the tracks goes to reform school, but ends up living an ordinary lower class life. The granddaughter and the tutor's son end up rich, powerful, married and evil.
The fact that the couple are evil results from the repeated moral compromises they committed to protect their position in life.
The ideas in "Ivers "are quite Aristotelian. What originally reminded Estase of "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers?"Those who have followed this blog have seen how Trumpism separated Estase from most of the right. January 6,2021 was where I felt like my former fellows had transformed into the sort of snarling, evil sociopaths played by Barbara Stanwyck and Kirk Douglas in the film.
Thrasymachus in Plato's Republic represents the ideas of power-worship and cynicism that mark MAGA/NTC.
Socrates:And would you call justice vice?
Thrasymachus:No,I would rather say sublime simplicity.
Socrates:Then would you call injustice malignity?
Thrasymachus:No,I would rather say discretion.
Socrates:And do the unjust appear to you to be wise and good?
Thrasymachus:Yes, he said;at any rate Those of them who are able to be perfectly unjust, and who have the power of subduing States and nations;but perhaps you imagine me to be talking of cut purses. Even this profession, if undetected, has advantages, though they are not to be compared with those of which I was just now speaking
Socrates:You are very kind, I said;and would you have the goodness also to inform me, whether you think that in a state, or an army, or a band of robbers and thieves, or any other gang of evildoers could act at all if they injured one another?
Thrasymachus:No,indeed, he said, they could not.
Socrates:But if they abstained from injuring one another, then they might act together better?
Thrasymachus:Yes.
Socrates:And this is because injustice creates divisions and hatreds and fighting, and justice imparts harmony and friendship;is that not true, Thrasymachus?
Refusing to accept personal morals in a leader seems to have led members of MAGA/NTC to lose their own ethical guide posts.
"Therefore the bad man does not seem to be amicably disposed even to himself, because there is nothing in him to love;so that if to be thus is the height of wretchedness, we should strain every nerve to avoid wickedness and should endeavor to be good;for so and only so can one be either friendly to oneself or a friend to another. "
Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics (1166:25-29)
MAGA/NTC created men who rebelled against the legal norms they had pretended to champion.
Aristotle said that ethical behavior is habitual. Part of this is wrapped up in his natural law theory, in which virtue is necessary for the formation of practical reason (phronesis).People accustomed to wickedness will have difficulty making moral decisions.
"Now if the mark be noble, the cleverness is laudable, but if the mark be bad, the cleverness is mere smartness;hence we call even men of practical wisdom clever or smart. Practical wisdom is not the faculty, but it does not exist without this faculty [ed.-virtue].And this eye of the soul acquires its formed state not without the aid of virtue, as has been said and is plain;for the syllogisms which deal with acts to be done are things which involve a starting-point, viz. 'since the end, i.e. what is best, is of such and such a nature';whatever it may be (let it for the sake of argument be what we please);and this is not evident except to the good man;for wickedness perverts us and causes us to be deceived about the starting points of action. Therefore it is evident that it is impossible to be practically wise without being good. "
Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics (1144:25-35)
Those who reject MAGA/NTC will end up doing what Van Heflin's character does at the end of the film--watching as the exponents of evil show their inability for friendship and destroy one another.
