# The Hero in History/Chapter 1

I
THE HERO AS EVENT AND PROBLEM
There is a perennial interest in heroes even when we outgrow the hero worship of youth. The sources of this interest are many and deep. But they vary in intensity and character from one historic period to another. In our own time interest in the words and acts of outstanding individuals has flared up to a point never reached before. The special reasons for this passionate concern in the ideas and deeds of the uncrowned heroes of our age are quite apparent. During a period of wars and revolutions, the fate of peoples seems to hang visibly on what one person, perhaps a few, decide. It is true that these special reasons reflect the dramatic immediacy of issues joined in battle, but there are other sources of interest which operate in less agonized times. We shall discuss both.
1. The basic fact that provides the material for interest in heroes is the indispensability of leadership in all social life, and in every major form of social organization. The controls over leadership, whether open or hidden, differ from society to society, but leaders are always at hand—not merely as conspicuous symbols of state, but as centres of responsibility, decision, and action. There is a natural tendency to associate the leader with the results achieved under his leadership even when these achievements, good or bad, have resulted despite his leadership rather than because of it. Where many factors are at work, the fallacy of post hoc, ergo propter hoc has a fateful plausibility to the simple mental economy of the uncritical multitude as well as to impatient men of action. A Hoover will be held accountable for a depression whose seeds were planted long before his advent. A Baldwin will be considered safe and sane if no social catastrophe breaks out during his ministry, even if he has lit a slow-burning fuse to the European powder magazine.
In our own day, the pervasive influence of leadership on the daily life of entire populations need no longer be imputed. For good or evil, it is openly proclaimed, centrally organized, and continuously growing. The development of corporate economies under centralized governments in the major countries of the ​world is such that we may say, without exaggeration, that never before have so few men affected so many different fields at once. The key decisions in politics, economics, foreign relations, military and naval affairs, education, housing, public works and relief, and—save in Anglo-America—in religion, art, literature, music, architecture, and science are made by a handful of national leaders, and frequently by one figure whose judgment and taste become the absolute laws of the land. The tremendous development of means of communication, which makes it possible to transmit decisions with the speed of light to every nook and corner, ensures an effectiveness of control never known before.
A Cæsar, a Cromwell, a Napoleon could and did issue decrees in many fields. But these fields, administratively and functionally, were not knotted together so tightly as they are to-day. They could not exact universal obedience to their decrees, or even suppress criticism. Some avenues of escape could never be closed. Some asylums of the spirit remained inaccessible to their law-enforcement agencies. The active presence of conflicting tendencies not only in politics but in religion and philosophy, during the reign of absolute rulers of the past, showed that they could not box culture within the confines of their dogmas and edicts. Their failure was not for want of trying.
How different is the picture in much of the world to-day! A Hitler, a Stalin, a Mussolini not only can and do issue decrees in every field, from military organization to abstract art and music; such dictators enforce them one hundred per cent. Their decisions affect not only the possibilities of earning a livelihood—something not unique to totalitarian countries—but all education of children and adults, and both the direction and content of their nations’ lierature, art, and philosophy. They cannot, of course, command geniuses to rise in the fields they contro, but they can utterly destroy all nonconforming genius and talent. Through schools on every level, since literacy is a weapon, through the radio, which no one can escape if it is loud enough; through the Press and cinema, to which men naturally turn for information and relaxation—they carry their education to the very “sub-conscious” of their people.
Silence and anonymity are no longer safeguards. All asylums of the spirit have been destroyed. The counsel of prudent withdrawal and disinterested curiosity from afar that Montaigne offered to those who would escape the political storms of their ​time—a counsel echoed by Saint-Beuve a century ago—would to-day most certainly arouse the suspicions of the secret police. This not only marks the distance which Europe has come from the absolutions of yesterday; it is a sign that, except for the leader and his entourage, everyone has lost his private life without acquiring a public one.
In democratic countries like England and America—democratic because the leadership is still largely responsible to representative bodies, and subject to vigorous criticism by rank and file citizens—the area and power of executive authority have been enormously expanded. This is in part a consequence of the trend toward State capitalism in their economies; in part a consequence of the necessity of total defence in the struggle for survival against totalitarian aggression. But whatever the reason, the facts are unmistakable and are becoming plainer and plainer every day. With the possible exception of the field of foreign policy, the discretionary powers of the American President and the British Cabinet Ministers in the last few years surpass any democratic forebears.
Where so few can apparently decide so much, it is not surprising that interest in the historical significance of outstanding individuals should be strong. It does not require theoretic sophistication to realise that everyone has a practical stake of the most concrete kind in whatever leadership exists. Personal views and virtues in the political high command may spell public disaster or welfare. For once, at least, Mr. Everyman’s moral appraisal of those in high places—if only he can keep it above the plane of village gossip—has historical relevance and justification.
The fundamental logic of the situation, to which we shall often recur, that gives intelligent point to contemporary interest in our theme, is this: Either the main line of historical action and social development is literally inescapable or it is not. If it is, any existing leadership is a completely subsidiary element in determining the main historical pattern of to-day and to-morrow. If it is not inescapable, the question almost asks itself: to what extent is the character of a given leadership casually and, since men are involved, morally responsible for our historical position and future? As we shall see, those who do speak of the inescapability of a specific historical future either belie their words by their actions as well as by other words, or else they compound their belief in an inescapable future with another ​one in the inescapability of a certain specific leadership, usually their own, which will lead us to this future. Sometimes they do both. We also shall see that to deny the inescapability of the main line of historical action does not necessarily mean that what it will be always depends upon the character of the leadership. There are more things in history than “laws of destiny” and “great men.” As far as the historical role of leadership is concerned, it is a question of degree and types of situation. Our task will be to indicate roughly to what degrees and in what types of situation, it is legitimate to say that leadership does redetermine the historical trends by which it is confronted, and in what type of situations it is legitimate to say that it does not.
2. Another source of interest in the hero is to be found in the attitudes developed in the course of educating the young. The history of every nation is represented to its youth in terms of the exploits of great individuals—mythical or real. In some ancient cultures the hero was glorified as the father of a nation, like Abraham by the Israelites, or as the founder of a state, like Romulus by the Romans. Among modern cultures the heroic content of historical education in the early years has remained comparatively unaffected by changing pedagogical fashions. This may be due to the dramatic effect of the story form that naturally grows up when history is treated as a succession of personal adventures. Or perhaps it reflects the simplest approach to the moralistic understanding of the child. Reinforced by folklore and legend, this variety of early education leaves a permanent impress upon the plastic minds of the young. To ascend from the individual to social institutions and relations between individuals is to go from the picturesque and concrete to an abstraction. Without adequate training the transition is not always easy. This undoubtedly accounts for the tendency of many people to personify “social forces,” “economic laws,” and “styles of culture.” These abstractions compel and decree and rule, face and conquer obstacles almost like the heroes of old. Behind the metaphor in much orthodox Marxist writing one can almost see “the forces of production” straining at the shackles with which Capital and Profit have fettered them while human beings, when they are not tugging on one side or another, watch with bated breath for the outcome.
Even on higher levels of instruction the “heroic” approach to history has not been abandoned. The school of American historians who clustered around James Harvey Robinson and ​the “New History” has given an impressively realistic account of the American past. But in imagining that they were dispensing with heroes and great men to follow the sober course of economic and social “forces,” they were deceiving themselves. They removed the kings, statesmen, and generals from their niches and then set up in their places the great captains of industry and finance, and the great thinkers in philosophy and science. The substitution is undoubtedly an improvement but its implication is difficult to square with their theory of the historical process which systematically, underplays the significance of the individual. The intelligent student often gets the impression from their work that, for example, “Rockefeller, Gould, and Morgan were the truly great men of the era; if they had only been utilized in the political field how different things would have been!”
In our own day, this attitude toward the hero and leader is not merely the unintended by-product of historical education. In most countries, particularly totalitarian countries, the cult of the hero and leader is sedulously developed for adults as well as for children and students. Here again technical advances in communication, together with the new psychological methods of inducing belief, make it possible to create mass enthusiasm and worship of leaders which surpass anything evolved in Byzantium. Where a Roman emperor was able to erect a statue of himself, modern dictators can post a million lithographs. Every medium is exploited by them to contribute to their build-up. History is rewritten so as to leave no doubt that it was either the work of heroes, predecessors of the leader, or the work of villains, prototypes of the leader’s enemies. From the moment the leader comes to power, his activity is publicly trumpeted as the proximate cause of every positive achievement. If crops are good, he receives more credit for them than does the weather. Similarly, the historical situation which preceded his advent to power is presented as a consequence not of social and economic causes but of a conspiracy and betrayal by the wicked.
To-day, more than ever before, belief in “the hero” is a synthetic product. Whoever controls the microphones and printing presses can make or unmake belief overnight. If greatness be defined in terms of popular acclaim, as some hasty writers have suggested, then it may be thrust upon the modern dictator. But if it is not thrust upon him, he can easily arrange for it. It would, however, be a serious error to assume that the ​individual who affects history—that is, who helps redetermine the direction of historical events—must get himself believed in or acclaimed, as a condition of his historical effectiveness. Neither Peter the Great nor Frederick II. had a mass following. It is only in modern times, where populations are literate, and lip allegiance to the democratic ethos prevails even in countries where its political forms are flouted, that the leader must get himself believed in to enhance his effectiveness. It should also be noted that the modern leader or dictator has emerged in a period of mass movements. In consequence he must have a mass base of support and belief as a counterweight to other mass movements. Mass belief in him before he reaches power is born of despair out of need, and nurtured by unlimited promises. Once he takes the reins, the dictator needs some mass support to consolidate his power. After that he can manufacture popular belief in his divinely ordained or historically determined mission almost at will.
Mass acclaim, which was not a necessary condition of the leader’s effectiveness in past eras, is not a sufficient condition of historical effectiveness in the present. A figurehead like the King of Italy or a royal romantic like Edward VIII. may be very popular, but he decides nothing. For our purpose the apotheosis of an historical figure is relevant only when it permits him to do historically significant things which he would have been unable to accomplish were he unpopular or without a mass following.
3. Whoever saves us is a hero; and in the exigencies of political action men are always looking for someone to save them. A sharp crisis in social and political affairs—when something must be done and done quickly—naturally intensifies interest in the hero. No matter what one’s political complexion, hope for the resolution of a crisis is always bound up with hope for the appearance of strong or intelligent leadership to cope with difficulties and perils. The more urgent the crisis, the more intense is the loning, whether it be a silent prayer or public exhortation, for the proper man to master it. He may be called “saviour,” “man on horseback,” “prophet,” “social engineer,” “beloved disciple,” “scientific revolutionist,” depending upon the vocabulary of the creed or party. Programmes are important, but they are apt to be forgotten in periods of heightened tension, when want or danger is so palpable that it sits on everybody’s doorstep. Besides, programmes are only declarations of intent and promise. As declarations, they remain in the limbo of the ​possible until they are realized, and for this competent leadership is required. As promises, they can be betrayed or broken, depending upon who makes them and who carries them out.
Despite their theoretical pronouncements, according to which every individual, no matter what his status, is a chip on a historical wave, social determinists of all hues cannot write history without recognizing that at least some individuals, at some critical moments, play a decisive role in redirecting the historical wave. Engels speaks of Marx, Trotsky of Lenin, Russian officialdom of Stalin in a manner completely at variance with their professed ideology. Even theological determinists like the Popes, who believe we can trace the finger of God in all historical events, speak of Western culture since the Reformation as if it had been created by Luther and Calvin behind God’s back. The twists and turns by which these contradictions are extenuated we shall examine later. The fact remains that, for all their talk of the inevitable, the determinists never resign themselves to the inevitable when it is not to their liking. Their words, however, confuse their actions both to themselves and to others. In the end we understand them truly by watching their hands, not their lips.
Crises in human affairs differ in magnitude and intensity. But, judging by the history of peoples of whom we have more than fragmentary records, there has never been a period which has not been regarded by some of its contemporaries as critical. History itself may not inappropriately be described as one crisis after another. Whatever the social forces and conditions at work, and they always are at work—in so far as alternatives of action are open, or even conceived to be open—a need will be felt for a hero to initiate, organize, and lead. The need is more often felt than clearly articulated, and more often articulated than gratified. Indeed, the more frequent the cries, and the higher their pitch mounts for an historical saviour or for intelligent leadership, the more prima facie evidence accumulates that the candidates for this exalted office are unsatisfactory.
A democratic society has its “heroes” and “great men,” too. It is no more exempt from sharp political crisis than other societies, and rarely lacks candidates for the heroic role. It selects them, however, on the basis of its own criteria. Where a democracy is wise, it will wholeheartedly co-operate with its leaders and at the same time be suspicious of the powers delegated to them—a difficult task but one which must be solved ​if democracy is not to become, as often in the past, a school for tyrants.
4. The role of the great man in history is not only a practical problem but one of the most fascinating theoretical questions of historical analysis. Ever since Carlyle, a century ago, proclaimed in his Heroes, and Hero-Worship that, “Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here,” the problem has intrigued historians, social theorists, and philosophers. Unfortunately, Carlyle’s book was not taken for what it is—a tract for the times, full of damply explosive moral fervour, lit up here and there with a flash of insight, but contradictory, exaggerated, and impressionistic. Instead it was taken as a seriously reasoned defence of the thesis that all factors in history, save great men, were inconsequential. Literally construed, Carlyle’s notions of historical causation are clearly false, and where not false, opaque and mystical. Some of his apostrophes to the great man and what is permitted him apologists could use for any totalitarian leader to throw a mantle of divine sanction around his despotic acts—if only they are sufficiently ruthless and successful. On the other hand, Carlyle’s pæans to revolution could be cited in justification by any man who fires at a king or dictator—and doesn’t miss.
The Spencerians, the Hegelians, and the Marxists of every political persuasion—to mention only the most important schools of thought that have considered the problem—had a field day with Carlylean formulations. But in repudiating his extravagance, these critics substituted another doctrine which was just as extravagant although stated in language more prosaic and dull. Great men were interpreted as colourful nodes and points on the curve of social evolution to which no tangents could be drawn. What is more significant, they overlooked a possible position which was not merely an intermediate one between two oversimplified contraries, but which sought to apply one of Darwin’s key concepts to the problem; namely, variation. According to this view, the great men were thrown up by “chance” in the processes of natural variation while the social environment served as a selective agency in providing them with the opportunities to get their work done.
It was William James, the American pragmatist, who took up the cudgels for a position which had been rendered unpopular among historians and the reading public by the scientific high ​priests of social evolution. Controversial zest together with a lack of interest in specific problems of economic and historical causation led him to a disproportionate emphasis on the role of the individual. But he formulated his position in such a way that it was free from the Carlylean fantasy that the great man was responsible for the very conditions of his emergence and effectiveness. James’s thesis sounds extreme enough; yet in stressing “the receptivities of the moment” which must be met before greatness becomes actual—receptivities that leave a Leonard Nelson in obscurity but carry a Hitler to the summits of power—he goes far in mitigating its severity. His recognition of the relative autonomy of the realms of nature, society, and individual personality, combined with his belief in the plurality of historical causes, carries to the heart of the problem. And this despite the fact that these views were derived from a larger philosophical attitude about the place of man in the world and not from a study of specific historical issues.
Nonetheless, James’s thesis as he left it is oversimplified and invalid. “The mutations of societies from generation to generation,” he tells us, “are in the main due directly or indirectly to the acts or examples of individuals whose genius was so adapted to the receptivities of the moment, or whose accidental position of authority was so critical that they became ferments, initiators of movement, setters of precedent or fashion, centres of corruption, or destroyers of other persons whose gifts, had they had free play, would have led society in another direction.”
What William James is saying is that no significant social change has ever come about which is not the work of great men, and that the “receptivities” of to-day which make that work possible are the result of the acts or examples of the outstanding individuals of yesterday. This may seem to cover adequately the vast changes that have unrolled before our eyes as a result of Lenin’s effort to reorganize the world along new social lines. It may, perhaps, throw some light from a new direction on the efforts of Hitler and Mussolini to conquer and enslave Europe in order to prevent not only Lenin’s plan from being realized but any democratic transformation of European society. Yet the First World War, and the breakdown of Russian economy which gave Lenin his chance, were certainly not the result of the act or example of any great individual. Nor were ​most of the antecedent conditions of social conflict—political, economic, ethnical—that were set off in 1914 attributable to the acts or examples of an individual.
The rise of capitalism, the industrial revolution, the march of the barbarians from the east, the Renaissance—none, of course, would have been possible without the acts or example of individuals. But no matter what particular individuals are named in connection with these movements, there is no evidence that the individuals were indispensable in the sense that without them these movements would not have got under way.
The easy contention that, had a “great man” been present, the First World War, say, would never have taken place cannot be upheld by any empirical evidence so far known. He would have had to be a very special sort of “great man”—that is, of a sort that has never appeared in comparable situations. Not infrequently contentions that make much of the decisive influence a great man would exercise if only he had been there are in principle not verifiable. This is the case when the hypothetical great man who would have prevented the First World War is identified not in virtue of independent traits but in terms of his hypothetical success. This is tantamount to offering a definition of what would constitute a great man in these circumstances. Our point here is not that the First World War was inevitable, but that the presence of a “great man” on the order of the great men of the past would probably not have altered matters much. Some other events could have altered things to a point of preventing the occurrence of the war, nor do we have to go to the realm of natural catastrophes to find them. For example, had the international socialist movement lived up to its pledges made at the Basle Congress, war might have been declared but it could not have been fought. But as far as the particular problem is concerned, no matter what individuals had occupied the chancelleries of Europe in 1914, the historical upshot of commercial rivalries, Germany’s challenge to British sea power, chauvinist resentments in western Europe, the seething kettle of Balkan intrigue, would very probably have been, much the same.
Fashions of interpretations have shuttled back and forth between historians and philosophers of history during the last hundred years. On the one hand we have sweeping forms of social determinism according to which the great man is a ​symbol, an index, an expression, an instrument, or a consequence of historical laws. To be sure, distinguishing traits between a great man and other men are recognized. But as a forceful writer of this school has put it, “The ‘distinguishing traits’ of a person are merely individual scratches made by a higher law of (social) development.” On the other hand, we have the conception of the possibility of perpetual transformation of history by innovators whose existence, strategic position, and shattering effect upon their fellow men cannot ever be derived from the constellation of social forces of their day. Intermediate views have not been wanting. They have expressed little more than the eclectic belief that sometimes the great man and sometimes the weight of environment controls the direction of historical change. But they have not specified the general conditions under which these factors acquire determining significance.
Once the theoretical question is firmly grasped, no one interested in understanding history can escape formulating some answer to it. There has hardly been a great period or outstanding individual in history that has not been handled differently by historians with varying attitudes toward the question. During the twentieth century the overwhelming majority of historians have been in unconscious thralldom to one or another variety of social determinism. This has not prevented them from conducting fruitful investigation. Much light has been thrown on the fabric of social life of past times and on the slow accumulation of social tensions which discharge themselves with volcanic fury during periods of revolution. Without impugning the validity of their findings, one wonders whether they have done as much justice to the activity of the leading personalities during the critical periods of world history whose roots they have uncovered so well. Too many figures of history have been surrendered for exploitation to belle-lettrists and professional biographers who draw their subjects with one literal eye on earlier portraits and one imaginative eye on Hollywood.
5. The psychological sources of interest in great men may, with as much justification, be regarded as means by which great men exert influence on their followers. These sources are, briefly, (a) the need for psychological security, (b) the tendency to seek compensation for personal and material limitations, and (c) the flight from responsibility which expresses itself sometimes in a grasping for simple solutions and sometimes in a surrender of political interest to professional politicians. These sources are ​obviously interrelated, but for purposes of analysis we shall treat them separately.
(a) The fact that the great man or leader often thinks of himself as the “father” of his country, party, or cause, and is even more often regarded by his following as their “father,” may seem to lend colour to the Freudian view that most individuals are in perpetual quest of the father (or mother) who supplied the axis of security and emotional stability in their early youth. There is a certain insight expressed here which, as is the case with whatever of value has emanated from Freud and his school, is completely independent of the mythological underpinnings of the Freudian system. Many people never outgrow their dependence on their parents, teachers, or whoever it is that plays the dominant role in supplying their wants, quieting their fears, and answering their questions as they grow up. Consequently, there is always ready a pattern of belief and acceptance, of incipient adjustment in behaviour, that may be filled by a leader who talks and acts with the assurance of a parent and makes claims to a role in the community analagous to the role of the father in the family.
The more troubled the times and the more conventional the education, the stronger are the vestigial patterns of dependence, and the easier it is for the leader to slip into its frame. Whether or not the latter proves himself by works is a minor matter at first. To adapt a remark of Santayana: for those who believe, the substance of things hoped for becomes the evidence of things not seen. The leader cannot, of course, survive irresistible evidence of catastrophe, but he is under no necessity to enhance the material security of those who believe in him because the belief itself, at the beginning, eases their fears and increases their confidence.
It must not be overlooked that the psychological need for security is inconstant both in existence and intensity. When the need is present, social contexts and pressures rather than raw, instinctive impulse determine what emotional shelters are sought. During times that are relatively untroubled, and particularly where education makes for critical maturity instead of fixing the infantile response of unquestioning obedience, the need for a father-substitute is correspondingly weakened. Under other historic circumstances where great leaders and individuds do not appear, an institution like the Church or the Party will assume the primary role of authority.
​(b) Perhaps a more important source of appeal made by the leader to his following lies in the vicarious gratification of their yearnings through his presumed traits and achievements. The splendour, the power, the flame of the leader are shared imaginatively. New elements of meaning enter the lives of those who are emotionally impoverished. The everyday disparities and injustices of social life, and sometimes the lacks and incapacities of personal life, fade out of the centre of concern. The ego is enlarged without effort and without cast. The skilful leader makes effective use of this, especially in the modern era of nationalism when fetishistic attitudes toward abstractions like the State and nation have been developed. By identifying his struggle for power with these abstractions, the leader effects a transference to himself of emotions previously directed to historic traditions, institutions, symbols, and ideologies. He is then able to change the old and established in the name of the old and established.
The tendency to compensate for one’s deficiencies by sinking them in the glorious achievements of more fortunate mortals may be an ever-present feature of social life. It may even explain, as Ludwig Feuerbach persuasively argued, the character of the gods men worship. But it should not be lost sight of that the persons and traits chosen for identification are historically variable. There usually are at least two possible ideals into which a need may be projected. A poor man may worship a rich god or an austere one; a people suffering from injustice may exalt a just ruler but they may also take pride in the fact that their tyrant is greater than all other tyrants. Why individuals should feel glorified in the exploits of a Hitler rather than in the wisdom of a Goethe, in the ruthlessness of a Stalin rather than the saintliness of a Tolstoy, cannot be explained simply in terms of the tendency to seek vicarious satisfaction for their limitations. The type of satisfaction sought is derived from the values of their culture.
(c) If everyone, or even many, were candidates for political leadership, social life would be far more disturbed than it is. We would not need to be fearful of this disturbance if mechanisms of selection were evolved that would give us highly qualified leaders responsive to the needs and wishes of an informed and politically active electorate. But this is a long way off, and we are discussing what has been and is. A survey of political history shows that aspirants for leadership constitute, ​comparatively speaking, a mere handful in every community. The truth seems to be that the overwhelming majority of people have little desire to assume positions of power and responsibility.
Conditions of political leadership, of course, change, but politics pursued as a professional career has been and always will be a risky game. Sometimes reluctance to serve as political leader has been so strong that elections have been conducted by lot as in the Greek cities. Even in modern times individuals have often been “drafted” from plough or workshop or office to fill offices. The point is, not that there is ever really lacking a sufficient number of persons willing, and even eager, to assume leadership, but rather that the ease with which such persons usually acquire and keep power, and the manifold ways by which they expand the authority originally delegated to them, would be impossible unless there were comparatively so few others interested in competing for the posts of leadership. So long as they are permitted to grumble, most people are gratefully relieved to find someone to do their chores, whether they are household chores or political chores. Politics is a messy business, and life is short. We put up with a great many evils in order to avoid the trouble of abolishing them.
This feeling is natural even if it is not wise. Political leadership is a full-time career with little opportunity for relaxation or cultivation of other interests. In retrospect few intelligent men who have enjoyed power have felt that its rewards were commensurate with the personal sacrifices it entailed. According to one of Plato’s myths, Odysseus, the crafty politician, chooses as his lot in his next reincarnation on earth a humble life in a forgotten corner far from the alarms of politics. What is true for the successful politician is also true for his rival. Serious political opposition is likewise a full-time activity. In political struggle, therefore, the integrated individual who has a plurality of interests, which he is loath to sacrifice on the sullied altars of politics, is always at a disadvantage. So is the sensitive and high-minded idealist who shrinks from the awful responsibility of deciding, quite literally, other people’s lives, and from the moral compromises and occasional ruthlessness required even by statesmanship of a high order. Further, political questions are difficult. We accept a great many decisions because we have not ​the dogmatic certitude that we know what decision is the right one, although we do know that some decision is necessary.
Yet it is an old story that when we refuse to upset our “normal life” by plunging into the political maelstrom, and entrust power to others, we awake some day to find that those to whom we entrusted it are well on their way to destroying “the normal life” we feared to interrupt. This is not only an old story but an ever-recurrent one. It will repeat itself until it is widely realized that political decisions must be made in any event; that responsibilities cannot be avoided by inaction or escape, for these have consequences; and that, considered even in its lowest terms, political effort and its attendant risks and troubles are a form of social insurance.
To the extent that knowledge of these elementary truths spreads and is acted upon, interest in political leadership becomes critical. Identification with it is then a conscious process, not a quest for a father-substitute. We may legitimately take credit for its achievements to which we would not be entitled if it were the work of our fathers, for whom we are in no way responsible. To the extent that these elementary truths are disregarded, every aspirant to leadership—even to dictatorship—can count to an appreciable degree upon the indifference of the population. They will yield him homage after he has succeeded. Whether they do or don’t, if he cares enough about it, he has the means to-day to make them pay homage to him.
We have briefly considered several of the sources of interest in the work of the “great man.” There are undoubtedly others. We have stressed only those which indicate the existence of the general problem of his influence and limitations as well as its contemporary importance. So far we have been using the terms “hero” and “great man” in the large and unprecise sense in which they are employed in common parlance. We shall find that many different things are understood by these terms and that we shall have to work out an adequate definition for our purposes as we go along. All senses of the term “hero,” as used by the adherents of heroic interpretations of history, presuppose that whatever the hero is, he is marked off in a qualitatively unique way from other men in the sphere of his activity and, further, that the record of accomplishment in any field is the history of the deeds and thoughts of heroes. It is necessary to look a little more closely at these premises.
* ↑ This quotation is from a student’s paper.
* ↑ “Great Men and Their Environment,” in Selected Papers on Philosophy, p. 174, Everyman Edition. See also “Great Men, Great Thoughts, and the Environment.” (Wikisource contributor note)
* ↑ This is not true of all “If” questions. See Chapter Seven.
* ↑ Cf. the remarks of Robert Michels in Political Parties, Eng. trans., pp. 49 ff. New York, 1915.