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On Public Virtue
| Article
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14280 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1988 |
4,517 Words |
| Author
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James Bond Stockdale
In Vietnam Jim Stockdale won two DFCs, three DSMs, four Silver
Star Medals, two purple Hearts, and the Congressional Medal of
Honor. He has been a scholar since retiring from the Navy as
president of the War College in 1979. Currently a Senior
Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution,
and Peace, he has ten honorary degrees. Admiral Stockdale
wrote this piece for the soon-to-be-published Hoover
Institution book entitled Thinking about America: The United
States in the 1990's. It will consist of thought-provoking
essays by distinguished Hoover Institution Fellows and other
prominent national figures, and will appear in September 1988. |
Those who study the rise and fall of civilizations learn that no shortcoming has been as surely fatal to republics as a dearth of public virtue, the unwillingness of those who govern to place the value of their society above personal interest. Yet today we read outcries from conscientious congressmen disenchanted with the proceedings of their legislative body and totally disgusted with the logjamming effect of their peers' selfish and artful distancing of themselves from critical spending cutbacks, much-needed belt-tightening legislation without which the long-term existence of our Republic itself is endangered.
The sad fact is that today such artful dodging of controversial questions is the road to reelection. It is not that a conspiracy of the selfish engineered such a turn of events, but that an evolution of governmental practices over time has made it easier for a legislator to stay on the fence and appear faultless. In the articles about the current national deficit predicament, we read that an exponential rise in public relations opportunities and techniques, with the resultant lure of extremely valuable, career-enhancing personal video coverage, has had its effect. This first generation of politicians since Pericles actually to be seen by their electors, we are told, is hooked on upbeat and safe thirty-second spots. But the stampede for self-advancement at the expense of the national interest is now with us in many matters other than the national deficit and concerns much more than personal publicity. Even the patriot with instincts to stand up and be counted for what he knows in his bones is right but unpopular has reason to ask himself why. The press regularly covers what this swing portends for national solvency, productivity, and other domestic economic issues. I will address how the trend toward sitting tight and playing it cool affects my calling: the profession of arms and the conduct of war.
It is crucial for the United States in the 1990s to reverse civilian government officialdom's steady drift toward shirking its duties to civic virtue, public virtue, the habitual taking of personal responsibility, and the placing of the overall good of the body politic above personal ambition and gain.
Our Founding Fathers' Political Roots: Unity Over Self
Probably no character trait was so universally identified by our Founding Fathers as essential to the long-run success of the American experiment as selfless public virtue. In those days of decision, almost all of them were quick with pleas for its
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