If you’re around my age, I pity you… no, wait, strike that; it’s not what I was thinking a moment ago. If you’re around my age, you probably received something that resembles an education in the history of the West: i.e., Europe and the Americas. Among the things to which you were probably exposed were the major contending theories of historical causation. They’re hardly mentioned in classrooms today: a change whose genesis I shall leave to your private consideration.
For a long time, the prevailing conception was the “Great Man” theory. It holds that major historical events are always, or nearly so, caused by the emergence of… drum roll, please… individuals of exceptional personal force and quality. In consequence, the study of history singled out men deemed to be the moving force behind the major events of their times. Students learned their names and were instructed, albeit subtly, to credit them with bringing about those events.
Some of the names were emphasized above the others. The emphasis usually went to political figures: men who rose to power over others. The closer we came to recent historical events, the more those “leaders” and their achievements / crimes were pressed upon us. Our instructors were clear about which ones were heroes and which ones were villains.
But the essential element in “great man” theory was seldom addressed even sotto voce. Science fiction writer Norman Spinrad summed it up in a memorable way:
What would Mao Tse-tung be without a billion Chinese to back him up? Just another cranky old man.
No individual “leader” can have much power in and of himself. His power arises from the number and quality of his followers: those who will go where he points and do what he commands. Then we have the famous centurion of Capernaum:
And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.
And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him.
The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.
When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.[Matthew 8:5-13.]
There’s a powerful element of mutual faith and trust between a great leader and his followers. He trusts that they will “Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.” They trust that following his directives will bring them what they seek. His greatness lasts only for as long as that faith and trust persist.
That speaks to the quality of the followers quite as much as to the leader.
An era shaped by great leaders must be one in which willing followers are many. You can’t have one without the other. Ours appears to be such an era.
However, it is not true that a follower must be without will and quality of his own. What’s crucial is the leader-follower relationship, as the centurion at Capernaum delineated it. Frank Herbert pierced the essence of that relationship in Dune:
“She asked me to tell her what it is to rule,” Paul said. “And I said that one commands. And she said I had some unlearning to do.”
She hit a mark there right enough, Hawat thought. He nodded for Paul to continue.
“She said a ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel. She said he must lay the best coffee hearth to attract the finest men.”
When that relationship devolves into a coercive one – i.e., when the “leader” loses the faith and trust of all but those paid to enforce his will – he descends from “great man” status to that of a tyrant. Tyrants are never great men.
Then comes a time when true leaders, genuinely great men who will have the faith and trust of many, must rise to challenge the tyrants. That doesn’t always happen in time to avert massive tragedy. We’ve had enough tragedies in the century past to know how bad they can be.
Global calamity threatens us: wars and chaos beyond anything men have ever known. Perhaps some true leaders have arisen in time to avert it: men of courage, vision, and charisma, whom millions will follow out of faith and trust. You can name them for yourself. Do so according to your own vision – and know what that vision implies, for good or for ill. Know what it commands of you.
Just an early-morning thought.
