All healthy societies must have elites. The real question is: How do we cultivate true elites who will fully carry out their proper role in society? The problem with our present, meritocratic elites is that they do not know how to carry out these obligations. There was a time when the nation was ruled by [...]
As revolutionary as they claimed to be, the French Revolutionaries were as old as sin, Edmund Burke assured his readers. “Trace them through all their artifices, frauds, and violences,” he argued, and “you can find nothing at all that is new.” Roughly four-fifths into his spectacular Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke paused. [...]
A key to Ronald Reagan’s personality was the devastating experience of being a child of an alcoholic parent. That experience burned into him patterns of behavior common to children of alcoholics—dislike and avoidance of controversy, fear of confrontation and, for many children of alcoholics, an obsession with order… “Chaos” in the Trump White House has [...]
Not only is a leader an agent of force and something of a philosopher, but he must also be a kind of corporate prophet… The philosopher Eric Voegelin labored for many years in relative obscurity until his death in 1985. Even now his disciples are drawn largely from conservative academe, which is so marginal as [...]
For students of leadership for a just society, the movie “Ride the High Country” crystallizes beliefs and codes of behavior worth studying, affirming, and claiming today. If you want to know what made the statesman and military leader George Catlett Marshall (1880–1959) great, then watch Ride the High Country (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), and you will receive a taste of [...]
Winston Churchill, who is the subject of Martin Gilbert’s book, comes out of it all a towering public figure—an inspiring wartime leader who never lost his confidence in the darkest hours of the war, a man of enormous vitality and energy, unsparing of himself, but who never lost an opportunity to enjoy what life had [...]
In our confusing and chaotic times, we do not need technocrats, economists, and politicians to craft their complex programs to solve our problems. We need captains who selflessly dedicate themselves to defending the common good… Traveling by air these days can be stressful. It is increasingly difficult to go on a trip without some incident [...]
Christ is the essential picture of a true leader: one who is vulnerable, like a Lamb; one who is a servant, a person willing to be a sacrifice for the Good… The first true leader I experienced was my own father. He is not particularly articulate, and there are many people who know more about [...]
On the heels of the Orlando massacre and with the Fourth of July recess in the near future, House Democrats sought to “seize the moment” to bring about strict gun control. Thus, on Wednesday, July 22, 2016, they orchestrated and executed a twenty-five-hour sit-in on their chamber’s floor. In light of these events, the temptation is to [...]
In the fifth century B.C., Athens and her allies were at war with Sparta and her allies in the Peloponnesian War, made famous by the great historian Thucydides. In the first part of the war, Pericles, son of Xanthippus, was the leader of Athens; by all accounts, he was an able leader, not least because [...]
I wonder about the presuppositions when voices are raised concerning the fragmentation of society and problems of disconnectedness.[1] At the heart of these concerns is a philosophical anthropology, i.e., one’s beliefs about what it means to be human. What is it exactly that is fragmented or disconnected? It is probably incumbent on me to disclose [...]
It is hard to hear the news about someone like Marilyn Tavenner stepping down and not think about the expectations we put on our leaders. In Tavenner’s case, when she became acting head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in 2011, politicians expected her to know the field of health care inside out. [...]
Recent stories concerning the sorry state of American education have focused on problems with the new “Common Core” public school curriculum and retention of clearly incompetent teachers. As a parent who long ago rejected our public school system, these seem to me to be mere symptoms of a much deeper and more critical (one might [...]
The most successful leader of the 20th century was Winston Churchill. But for twelve years, from 1928 until Dunkirk in 1940, he was totally on the sidelines, almost discredited—because there was no need for a Churchill. Things were routine or, at any rate, looked routine. When the catastrophe came, thank goodness, he was available. Fortunately [...]