17. THE LESSONS OF HISTORY

KEY COMPONENTS OF AN EXCELLENT SOCIAL ORDER

Leaders, not social designs, shape the moral-social order.  Modern writers of American civics textbooks typically present the general character and specific features of a social order, or in our case the American social-political order, as the product of a vast amount of legal engineering.  The social order is presented as the sum total of well-designed legal structures, laws, political offices, civil and social institutions, that direct the behavior of the members of a society.  In other words, it is good laws and good political structuring that make the good society.  It is all very mechanical, all very personality-neutral in its operation.

Understanding social dynamics from this viewpoint, it becomes imperative for those involved in social engineering (social-political reformers found in public office, in academia, in the press, even in the field of entertainment, etc.) to lay out on paper and in their public proposals the blueprints for a truly great society, one whose political offices are designed to work along highly rational lines.

We saw how the social commentator John Locke, for instance, was invited in the 1600s to set out a rational social-governmental plan by which to direct the development of the new Carolina colony.  But so perfect was it in design that it was quite useless in dealing with the messy circumstances which this new society faced in actually getting up and running.  Then also, we saw how the highly academic President Wilson had precise plans for democratizing global society –which tragically fell apart in the face of political reality.  More recently, President Johnson and his advisors had beautiful plans and programs to bring America to perfection as the "Great Society," all of which crumbled in the face of unanticipated social dynamics.  And then there was the American effort to rebuild a war-torn Afghanistan and a post-Saddam Iraq through implementing constitutional reform.

Beautiful social plans did not automatically make for beautiful social results.  But this is a hard reality almost impossible to get the world of intellectual and bureaucratic social planners to understand.

Thus unfortunately, Americans have been taught that "the office makes the man."  Political office supposedly empowers, directs and limits the behavior of anyone filling that office.  If the office is well-designed, then anyone holding that office and operating under its directives should fulfill quite nicely the responsibilities society has conferred on him or her.

That principle perhaps holds true at the lower, more bureaucratic level, of the social order (whether a nation, a corporation, a military organization, a university, etc.).  But it is not bureaucrats that inspire or direct the behavior of larger society.

Indeed, as has been very clear from the American example itself, societies are actually highly leader-dependent in who or what they happen to be.  Sadly, Americans –so enraptured with the rather mechanical idea (even ideal) of legal-mechanical constitutional-democracy –find it almost impossible to acknowledge the key role that individual leaders play in the successes (and failures) of societies.  Tragically, Americans love to overthrow authoritarian leaders in the name of promoting their ideal of legal-mechanical constitutional-democracy –then always shocked and confused to see how, instead, their efforts to do so typically throw a society into violent social disarray.

But to anyone who has looked seriously at how human history has worked over the countless generations of human life on this planet, it is always very clear how a single individual can shape the character and operation of society.

History is full of such examples.  Chinese history, for instance, is really the study of personal dynasties, ones that have arisen out of a period of confusion when the Chinese society is torn apart by warring warlords, until one of these warlords is able to establish ascendancy over the others, and thus begin a new dynasty, and a new period of peace and social development.

The Hebrew Bible is really a story of ancient Hebrew patriarchs and prophets, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, Nathan, Elijah, Elisha, and the huge impact they personally had on the shaping of the Hebrew nation.

Western history is filled with the stories of how such individuals as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Constantine, Charlemagne, Luther, Calvin, Louis XIV, Napoleon, etc., had a huge impact on the defining of the social order of their days.

More recently we have also seen how Hitler, Stalin, Gandhi, Churchill, Mao shaped our world (in ways good or bad) in their days.

And certainly in American history, note the enormous impact that Washington, Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, the Roosevelts, Truman, Johnson, Reagan, Obama, or for that matter virtually every American President in one way or another, each had in shaping American society.

Leaders stand as living-breathing examples of the moral ideals that the people need to embrace in order for their society to succeed. Society's best leaders actually serve society as the very living symbol, even reality, of the moral order and its particular social design.  These leaders are not political dictators forcing the people to adhere to strict social policy that they are imposing on society (though some will certainly try to lead this way).

Great leaders do not dictate.  They inspire.  They themselves become the visible idea, the very embodiment of the ideal features of that society –from the lofty goals or social ideals that the leader represents personally, to the choices to be made or the procedures to be followed which the leader inspires the society to embrace in order for it to be able to reach those lofty goals.  This is what brings a society to success, even grand success (or tragically also, massive disaster if wrongly directed), because such leadership is not just accepted.  It is followed enthusiastically by the rest of society.

Thus it is that truly "the man makes the office" –not the reverse.  We have seen how the office of U.S. president changes in character and political effect as it changes hands, from one individual to the next.  True, the office empowers an individual legally.  But how (and if) that power is used depends entirely on the personal makeup of the individual holding that office.

This idea that the greatness (or failure) of any society is determined heavily by the personal character of the person acting as society's leader is illustrated very clearly in history.

Alexander the Great was no holder of any particular imperial office (though he was the son of the conquering Macedonian King Philip II), but the one himself who defined by his enormous activity what his huge empire was to become.

Hitler was brought to power as Germany's Chancellor in 1933.  But what happened next to Germany had little to do with the mechanics of the German Weimar Republic or the office of Chancellor.  In fact, that German constitutional order was quickly put aside by the German people themselves in order to build a German Third Reich or Empire around the very person of their Führer (Leader) Hitler.  For better or worse (in this case horribly worse) the German nation redefined itself around the personality of a single individual.  The same can also be said of Stalin's Russia and Mao's China.  And we must add, this is exactly what is happening today under Xi Jinping's leadership in China and Putin's leadership in Russia.

With respect to America, in the break with King George III's royal rule in 1776 there really was at that point no precise social or political order presiding over or unifying the thirteen different colonies (now new states) as a whole, because the thirteen colonies had for so long simply and ably looked after themselves.  But with rebellion against George III underway, these new states would have to find for themselves a higher path, one that could bring them together for success in this Herculean task.  Thankfully, there were a number of old well-established social habits that they shared mutually, ones built on America's long-standing moral order, ones that allowed the Continental Congress to function (even though not yet officially approved by all the states).

But the ultimate dynamic that moved America forward from its status as a group of thirteen English colonies to the status of thirteen newly independent but united states was importantly found above even that.  It was in America's actual leadership. And here is where George Washington looms large as the foundation on which the independence movement relied for its existence and its durability.  As Washington stood firm and unbending before the huge challenge of breaking the determination of the British to force the American states back into submission, so also did these states find inspiration not to bend or yield.

Then not only did he lead the country through the dark days of the rebellion, Washington went on after that to shape greatly what the "United States" was to look like in the way he went at the role of serving as the republic's first president.

That's how social orders are put into place, and thrive (or not).