Jimmy Carter and Satan both appeared in the Dec. 29 edition of the British magazine, The Economist. The former president was the subject of its weekly obituary column, while Satan showed up three pages earlier, in a book review. The two articles, taken together, say something about leadership and morality.

 “Mr. Carter was perhaps the most virtuous of all America’s presidents,” said the headline to his obituary. He nevertheless suffered defeat in his bid for re-election, leaving office under a cloud of inflation, unemployment, and the Iran hostage crisis. But, as the Economist asserted, “…scarcely had Mr. Carter left the job than he seemed completely different: both effective and impressive.”

He became, through his involvement in Habitat for Humanity, as well as his work for peace, democracy, and human rights around the world, “America’s conscience and its moral ambassador,” and won the Nobel peace prize. “Yet,” insisted the Economist, Jimmy Carter the president and Jimmy Carter the ex-president were “the same man…simple Christianity was his guide: to walk humbly, love his neighbor and do right by him.”

“In America,” concludes the article, “his career raised the disturbing thought that it might be impossible for a really effective president to also be a really good man.”

Flip back three pages in the same magazine and we find a very different character in Satan, as portrayed in “Paradise Lost.” The book-length poem, published in 1667, begins with Satan’s rebellion against God and his exile, along with his followers, into Hell. John Milton wrote it to “justify the ways of God to men,” and yet, as the Economist states in its opening sentence:

“It is hard not to like Satan. He is Western culture’s original rebel, the bad boy who dared to defy the authority of God.”

Satan’s most famous line in the poem — ”Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven”—has excited rebels and would-be rebels ever since. Thomas Jefferson drew inspiration for the Declaration of Independence from Satan’s stirring speeches to his followers. Thomas Paine quoted him in his pamphlet, “Common Sense,” to support America’s rebellion against the King of England.

The flawed hero is a common theme in novels and on the screen. He inspires us without making us feel inferior. The political leader who defies the sermonizing of God, the King of England, or the woke establishment likewise has a strong appeal. We see him or her as someone who rides over the niceties and gets things done.

Tolerating and even embracing the moral shortcomings of leaders is rooted in our evolution, according to three researchers from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Their recent article in January’s issue of the journal, Political Psychology, reports on their large research study of people’s attitudes toward personal and political morality. It’s titled, “Politics makes bastards of us all.”

They found that participants were more likely to disregard moral standards when it comes to politics than they were in their personal lives. They were, for example, more willing to falsely accuse a politician than someone they knew personally. They were also more accepting of immoral behavior by a politician they supported than they would be of the same actions by a friend.

Disparities between personal and political morality are, the authors propose, rooted in our beginnings as social animals. Moral behavior was and still is necessary among group members who rely on each other for their well-being, but it places them at a disadvantage if they extend it to competing groups and their members. Evolution, in other words, creates powerful incentives for a double standard regarding personal and political morality.

People and groups vary in how much they practice a double standard. The authors found that the best predictor was how much people disliked, or even hated, the members of the outside group. Many politicians know this. They demonize leaders and members of competing groups because they understand that the more we hate them, the more willing we are to do what we’d otherwise consider to be immoral.

Moral hypocrisy in politics gets results — at the price of the hostility and disunity that characterize politics in America and the rest of the world today. Some people — the Jimmy Carters of this world — nevertheless refuse to restrict their moral values to their own kind, and whole-heartedly apply them to everyone. Maybe it isn’t possible for a really good person to be a really good president, but the world is a better place than it would otherwise be because of people like him.

Lowell Harp is a retired school psychologist who served school districts in Ogle County. His column runs monthly in The Ogle County Life. For previous articles, you can follow him on Facebook at http://fb.me/lowellharp.