Feature: Classical Literature
As Americans ponder the presidential election, we examine what classical literature tells us about the issue of leadership.
Another national election provides American citizens an opportunity to make known their concerns and values. They do so, not so much by voting on specific issues, but by choosing a set of leaders to represent them. Amidst the flurry of advertisements, speeches, and conversations it is easy to become overwhelmed by the avalanche of claims and counterclaims. The heated partisan rhetoric of candidates and sophisticated manipulation of issues by professional spinners can easily confuse rather than enlighten voters. In such a situation, it is tempting to fall back on inherited party loyalty, selfish economic interests, experts’ advice, or friends’ suggestions. There is an alternative: Go to classical literature and study what great writers, ancient and modern, have to say about leadership.
One course on campus provides students with an opportunity to examine several classical statements. Although the primary focus does not concern political leadership per se, the examination of leadership in several dimensions of social life provides helpful principles for evaluating the claims of would-be political leaders.
The first reading—from The Republic by Plato—sets the tone for the course. The selection focuses on the desirability of a Philosopher-King. Not only is the thinker removed from attachment to materialistic values, such a leader is exceptionally knowledgeable. And the awareness is not limited to factual information; he or she is able to discern and support policies that are in the best interest of the citizenry. The inclusion of the female pronoun is not a courtesy to recent feminist demands; rather, it represents Plato’s emphasis on inclusiveness. Unlike his student Aristotle, he argued that women were not only capable but also deserving of being included in the pool from which wise leaders could be drawn. The idea of inclusiveness has been expanded by later advocates of openness such as Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Lincoln served as president in an era when the nation was facing its most divisive challenge. One region had declared its independence and was willing to defend its decision in a costly war. Once the war began to wind down, he faced the task of rebuilding a society that would not only include former rebels, but former slaves as well. His charitable attitude, which was a major theme in his well-known speeches during the Civil War, set him apart from the mainstream of his party but helped earn for him a special place of honor among national leaders.
As one outside the political decision-making processes, Gandhi faced seemingly insurmountable odds as he sought to lead disenfranchised majorities into their rightful place in the political order. His refusal to demonize his opponents or turn to violence emphasizes one of his major ideas: Solutions to social problems must include all parties involved. He did not advocate eliminating the elite minority that held the masses in subservient positions. Rather, he proposed solutions that would include both the insiders and the outsiders in a system that would stigmatize neither as loser.
Like Gandhi, King also insisted that the task of the minority he led was not to defeat the majority that held his people in subservience. Instead, the challenge was to create conditions in which all races could be united in a community of love. His letter to the ministerial association of Birmingham made clear that he was saddened to learn that they, of all people, would fail to understand that their common religion made them brothers instead of enemies. Although speaking pointedly and prophetically, he did not condemn but rather proposed building a restructured society around an inclusive theology.
Plato verbalized another idea that runs through the thinking of the other admirable leaders: a Philosopher-King is able to envision what a humane society should be. Although the visions evolved over the centuries to be more democratic and equitable, each leader had a clear notion, often based on religious traditions, of what an ideal society would be. Not only could they envision a “more perfect union,” the successful ones could articulate the vision in such a way that others could also grasp the idea and be drawn into the dream. Some of them depended on moving emotional rhetoric, Lincoln and King being two of the most obvious examples. Others were more detached and sanguine.
Aristotle’s golden mean and Marcus Aurelius’ relaxed Stoic style were also appropriate and effective. Instead of a common style, the crucial issue concerned their ability to explain and inspire. In other words, style was important if it worked to convey the vision. But the content of the vision, not the rhetorical style, was the crucial quality.
Great orators left other classic literature, but they are not associated with heroic leadership. Rather they are noted for style. In the classics under consideration, effective leaders were seldom, if ever, merely armchair rhetoricians. Often they were unusually astute tacticians who were able to select unusual strategies to achieve their goals. In a time when women seldom achieved major positions of leadership, Cleopatra depended not only on disciplined hard work and political cunning; when necessary she resorted to seduction or ruthlessness to maintain her place. In the more recent past, Norma Rae was able to devise strategies that allowed a group of previously powerless textile workers in the South to gain a voice in determining their treatment.
Despite pessimism within and without their constituencies, both Gandhi and King chose nonviolence and civil disobedience as the most promising policies to achieve their goals. There are no universally recognized strategies which work in all areas of reform; the wise Philosopher-King knows and chooses those which will succeed.
Unfortunately, effective strategies are not the sole property of admirable leaders. Machiavelli advises nobles to forget niceties of strategy and choose methods that work. Captain Ahab’s authoritarian style made it possible for him to maintain the obedience of his crew even though junior officers urged him to give up his maniacal quest. Adolf Hitler was able to achieve his destructive goals in spite of methods that must have horrified decent people of good will who watched his rise to power and his abominable practices once he achieved office.
Several of the course materials provide insights into the darker side of leadership. In doing so they identify some of the traits which set undesirable leaders apart. They tend to be highly driven by personal ambition, selfish interests. Captain Ahab cared little if anything for the financial interests of the ship owners or the well-being of his crew. He wanted only to encounter and do battle once more with the white whale, regardless of cost. Machiavelli argued that the role of a leader is to secure goals, not to be concerned about the interests of those he controlled. Hitler was driven in part by a desire to identify as scapegoats the groups he associated with unearned success, the people who supposedly accounted for the defeat of his country in World War I, and the people who kept him from finding a satisfactory place in the society of his day. Satisfying neurotic personal needs took precedence over other motives.
Suspect leaders play upon people’s fears, insecurities, and miseries. They divide the world into forces of good and evil. They blame the existence of social ills on minorities: Jews, gays, gypsies, and other people who do not conform to majority “purity.” The exaggerated, vituperative rhetoric employed in condemning such groups matches the extremism of the accusations.