“From the Garden of Eden to the president’s Cabinet meetings, apple-polishing has a sorry history”
Matthew Gwyther, a freelance journalist, last month produced and presented the BBC Radio 4 documentary “Sucking Up: A Guide to Sycophancy Through the Ages.”
We cannot say we weren’t warned. The Trump administration might be writing its own chapter in the history of toadyism, but the perils of sycophancy have been made clear since the Garden of Eden. In “Paradise Lost,” John Milton conjures the scene as the satanic serpent beguiles Eve with a silken- and fork-tongued speech telling her that she’s almost as beautiful as God himself:
