In the sum of our lives' of deeds, non-deeds and misdeeds, binding moments are rare and count heavily. In modernity our lives are quiet iterations of single-digit advances and setbacks. We get our paychecks at regular intervals and count down the days to retirement when we can get our paychecks without working. Instead of a blinding supernova there are a thousand points of light, opportunities every day to "make life better," and there are a thousand cuts to death instead of one premature, catastrophic wound. Ours are lives of gentle ups and downs over rolling hills rather than the vertigo of peaks and the compression of depths. We wish for ourselves and for others "enough."
Few of us know binding moments.
Great men are produced by the times, the adage goes. In this view few of us attain greatness because few have the opportunity. When the times require greatness, so this positivist outlook continues, we will have great men: you, and you, and you, and me. America was in a bind in 1861 and out of nowhere produced Abraham Lincoln; in 1932, FDR; in 1941, FDR again.
There is the fallacy of reversibility in that. If the United States had lost the Civil War Lincoln would have been consigned to presidential hell for the same tactics and strategy that place him in the first rank of presidents. It is not an explanation, it is a tautology.
Times-make-the-man history is selective. The times did not produce greatness in James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson, the two bookends to Abraham Lincoln’s presidency. Great Britain chose Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill at the same time. Decisions borne of fear and decisions borne of courage. The flip side to times-make-the-man positivism is that men do not affect greatness.
"First, were we truly men of courage?"
-President-elect John Fitzgerald Kennedy, speech to Massachusetts General Court, January 9, 1961.
You do need the opportunity, most of us don't get the opportunity, but Lenny Skutnik got the opportunity and had the courage to seize it. Buchanan and Johnson and Chamberlain and George W. Bush got the opportunity and whiffed. There is fallacy also in the breezy view of latent greatness. Man can affect greatness and he can fail to affect greatness.
Opportunity is circumstances plus power. You don't have to be presented with the opportunity of existential threat. Dwight D. Eisenhower was presented the most placid eight years in 20th century America. He golfed a lot, yes, but he also created the interstate highway system, foresaw and forewarned the threat of the burgeoning military-industrial complex to civil society. Barack Obama inherited no existential crisis; he inherited the Great Recession and ended it; seized the opportunity to enact a national health care system; inherited the NSA spy scandal, the realization of Eisenhower's warning, and did nothing.
Greatness is opportunity plus power plus judgment.
"Second, were we truly men of judgment?"
There is then a necessary alignment of factors, circumstances, power, and judgment, all temporal and personal for greatness. It is rare, it is also discrete; greatness is discrete. For those who are presented the circumstances, who are given the power and who have the judgment there are discrete instances where the alignment occurs. In the three instances above Barack Obama went two for three.
The sum of a man's life are the discrete instances of the things he has done, those he has failed to do, those he has done poorly, and the circumstances of all three. The great ones count more.
(A version of this post appeared here on March 13, 2015)
Few of us know binding moments.
Great men are produced by the times, the adage goes. In this view few of us attain greatness because few have the opportunity. When the times require greatness, so this positivist outlook continues, we will have great men: you, and you, and you, and me. America was in a bind in 1861 and out of nowhere produced Abraham Lincoln; in 1932, FDR; in 1941, FDR again.
There is the fallacy of reversibility in that. If the United States had lost the Civil War Lincoln would have been consigned to presidential hell for the same tactics and strategy that place him in the first rank of presidents. It is not an explanation, it is a tautology.
Times-make-the-man history is selective. The times did not produce greatness in James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson, the two bookends to Abraham Lincoln’s presidency. Great Britain chose Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill at the same time. Decisions borne of fear and decisions borne of courage. The flip side to times-make-the-man positivism is that men do not affect greatness.
"First, were we truly men of courage?"
-President-elect John Fitzgerald Kennedy, speech to Massachusetts General Court, January 9, 1961.
You do need the opportunity, most of us don't get the opportunity, but Lenny Skutnik got the opportunity and had the courage to seize it. Buchanan and Johnson and Chamberlain and George W. Bush got the opportunity and whiffed. There is fallacy also in the breezy view of latent greatness. Man can affect greatness and he can fail to affect greatness.
Opportunity is circumstances plus power. You don't have to be presented with the opportunity of existential threat. Dwight D. Eisenhower was presented the most placid eight years in 20th century America. He golfed a lot, yes, but he also created the interstate highway system, foresaw and forewarned the threat of the burgeoning military-industrial complex to civil society. Barack Obama inherited no existential crisis; he inherited the Great Recession and ended it; seized the opportunity to enact a national health care system; inherited the NSA spy scandal, the realization of Eisenhower's warning, and did nothing.
Greatness is opportunity plus power plus judgment.
"Second, were we truly men of judgment?"
There is then a necessary alignment of factors, circumstances, power, and judgment, all temporal and personal for greatness. It is rare, it is also discrete; greatness is discrete. For those who are presented the circumstances, who are given the power and who have the judgment there are discrete instances where the alignment occurs. In the three instances above Barack Obama went two for three.
The sum of a man's life are the discrete instances of the things he has done, those he has failed to do, those he has done poorly, and the circumstances of all three. The great ones count more.
(A version of this post appeared here on March 13, 2015)
