Demand Greatness

This is a little thing I composed for the Asbury Collegian. I hope it's at least thought-provoking. It's based on some observations I've had of the culture regarding our current economic situation.

“There is no demand for great people. I can’t say why, but this fact is simply obvious to me. Famous, notable, popular – yes. But not great in the fullest sense of the word.” I stumbled across this quote about six months ago in a New York Times article about the death of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the famous Russian writer. It stuck out to me, even making it to my Facebook page under “favorite quotes.” (Big deal, I know.) For some reason, though, I couldn’t quite put my finger on why this rang true. Now, six months later, in the midst of an economic crisis of possibly historic proportions, I think this quote caught my eye because it is absolutely true of our culture right now.
On one side of the culture now, we have conservatives who argue against the responsibility of the elite to the rest of society. Conservative pundits, in their anger over big spending, have been encouraging the wealthy to “drop out” of the economy to teach the lazy underclass a lesson. This is Objectivism at its worst. For those of you who don’t know, Objectivism is a philosophy developed by the Russian immigrant writer Ayn Rand. In her most influential novel, Atlas Shrugged, the intellectuals and titans of industry drop out of the mainstream of society to protest what they see as creeping socialism in the American system. Rand would argue that self-interest in this case is best because it frees the “superior” class from having any responsibility to the poor. If you think I’m kidding, check the sales of Atlas Shrugged on Amazon. Glenn Beck, a prominent conservative pundit, has called this novel “prophetic” on his Fox News talk show.
This trend of citing Rand scares me, because it screams a resounding “No!” to Cain’s famous question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” If the gifted elite of society take this call seriously, who will rise above the current circumstances to help lead us out of this economic wilderness? The cultural right has lost the Classical sense of public virtue that the founders of this country admired, deciding instead to extol the “virtue” of selfishness, another phrase taken directly from Rand.
On the other side of the cultural aisle, the left is not faring any better right now. They feel like the solution to the current crisis is to simply throw money at the problem. While I believe this comes from good intentions, it fails to recognize the moral element of our current situation. It was a mixture of corporate greed (see what A.I.G. is doing with bailout funds) and American consumerism that led us to this juncture. Giving money to bail out the companies that helped get us into this mess is simply allowing taxpayers’ money to get sucked into the moral vacuum that is the financial industry right now. So, as big a plan as the bailout seems, it is actually not large enough in scope.
With both sides proposing solutions that are off base, what is left to those of us caught in the middle? I think it goes back to the quote I gave at the beginning of this piece. Our culture today denies the value of greatness. Rampant individualism and self-interest dominate the airwaves. Our view is limited simply to the monetary aspect of our current crisis. Even non-extremists would rather make their own way in the world instead of being called into something greater than themselves. No one wants a great person because a great person might ask us to make hard choices.
So I guess what I’m asking for here is a return to public virtue. Public virtue is the Classical idea that those who have something to affect the common good will sacrifice some of their rights for the common good. Those who have the potential for greatness should not hide behind Rand’s philosophy or simply attempt to throw money at problems. Instead, they should lead with the moral vision that our society has lost. Now when I speak of moral vision, I am not bewailing some perceived decline in personal morality. I am simply saying that those who lead should do so armed with the Classical and universal public morals of wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice. Anyone would agree that a leader needs these characteristics. People respond to these qualities regardless of their philosophy or faith tradition. A leader with moral vision will transcend ideology in the pursuit of the common good. We respect an Abraham Lincoln or a Martin Luther King, Jr. because they cast a moral vision that spoke to the better angels of our nature.
In conclusion, then, I would say that we have much work to do. Our current leaders need to put aside petty differences to recognize the depth and breadth of our crisis. The future leaders from my generation should begin to develop the public moral vision now so that we would not have to repeat the mistakes of our past. Those who would lead us, now or in the future, must cast that moral vision. As for the rest of us, we must recognize the necessity of great people to shake us out of our comfortable individualism and into working for the common good. If our leaders fail to aspire to greatness, shame on them. If we fail to demand it from them because we are lazy, shame on us.