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The Promise and the Threat of a Great Leader
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20576 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1992 |
7,798 Words |
| Author
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Paul D. Ellenbogen
Paul D. Ellenbogen is a graduate student in political science
at Duke University. His interests include ancient political
philosophy, modern political theory, American political
thought, and constitutional law. |
In Federalist 10, Publius writes that "enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm" of the American government; he goes on to argue that the system he is endorsing, our original Constitution, will work well without great leaders. In a later number of the Federalist, Publius argues that the proposed American Constitution deserves to be approved precisely because it ensures that even if a great leader does obtain the presidency, a leading role in the Senate, or some other prominent office, he will be checked by other, not necessarily great, politicians.
It seems that by accepting our present Constitution, we are deliberately choosing to do without great leaders, or to constrain them if they do obtain political office. Yet, as another national election approaches,
Americans complain about the "lack of leadership" in America and the inability of government to solve pressing problems. At such times, we may wonder if we made the right choice by agreeing to a constitutional system that was meant to thrive without great leadership and to prevent its practice.
The decision to do without great leaders may make more sense if we can specify what we mean by a great leader. One of the most obvious examples of a great leader, one that would have occurred to the authors of the Federalist, was Cyrus, also known as Cyrus the Great, or simply "The Great Kind". His life is depicted in Xenophon's work The Education of Cyrus, or the Cyropaideia. Scholars dispute the accuracy of Xenophon's work both as a history in the modern sense (that is, as a work accurately relating the events of a certain time or place), and as a biography, a work that gives a true account of one person's life. But the model of leadership in Xenophon's book even if fictional certainly was available to those who established our government. In reading this work, one wonders why the Founding Fathers rejected such a model. For even if King George III was a bad king, Cyrus surely was an admirable one. We would want to judge any institution, such as kingship, not by a flawed example but by the best possible kind.
It may turn out that great leadership, or kingship (the words are much more closely linked in Greek), even in its best form, is incompatible with the way of life we think is best. Even Cyrus, whom Xenophon says "greatly excelled other men in the art of governing" (1.16), may not be the type of person we would want to govern the United States. Or, if such a person did obtain political power, it might be that we would want to rein him in rather than allow him to
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