… upon his father’s death in 1699, he became a member of the House of Lords until his ultimate retirement from active politics (due to ill health) in 1702. From that point onward, the pen became his political weapon. H e conceptualized a cu ltural politics that sought to transform British society both ethically and politically. Against the self-interested individual … but also corrupted them. 4 . Lawrence E. Klein, Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness: Moral Discourse and Cultural Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 76-80. …