Duty, Power, and The West Wing.

For five seasons, The West Wing has remained one of the most popular dramas on television. For a show that features no sex, little violence, and lots of fast-paced dialogue about arcane political issues of the day, the appeal of the show appears obscure. In this paper, we will see how TWW taps into particular American ideological narratives regarding duty, power, and their interrelation. TWW offers the viewer an idea of what duty means in the particular context of an American political ideology; furthermore, it attempts to work out how Americans demonstrate a commitment to their duties, and to whom or what that sense of duty is owed. Since the show exists within the scenery of the American presidency and politics more generally, it also addresses (albeit indirectly) the allure of power in public service, acknowledging that a sense of duty often proves insufficient to motivate individuals. But American attitudes and ideas of power, as American political figures from Washington to Lincoln to Lyndon Johnson have noted, contain much nuance and appreciation for the good of power, contrary to our popular (and perhaps populist) notions of the human corruptibility that comes from power. Such being the case, the paper unwinds the interweaving of duty and power, demonstrating how TWW’s creators and cast propound a theory of American politics that has deep roots in the history of our political ideology and that emphasizes familiar rhetoric while pointing to little remembered components of our shared ideological heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]