Intellectual Leadership: Plato’s Dream, Popper’s Nightmare
by Charles Pasternak
Author of Quest: The Essence of Humanity (John Wiley, 2003;
paperback 2004)
Mens cuiusque is est quisque
(What a man’s mind is, that is what he is)
Good leadership, the world over, is in short supply. Terrorism or its threat lurks everywhere; the problems in the Middle East grow by the hour; central African chiefs continue to practice genocide instead of agriculture; meanwhile, in Brussels, overpaid bureaucrats dream up yet more ludicrous directives that will render the European economy as uncompetitive as that of Burkina Faso. It is clear we need good leaders as never before.
Popper in conversation with Plato
The dilemma is not, of course, a new one. In 1960, when, despite the Cold War, much of the world was in a more stable mood than now, Senator John F. Kennedy remarked that “We need leaders who will accomplish two great objectives. First, they will awaken responsible citizens out of their mood of acquiescence and drift, showing them that only timely, determined action can create a better future; and second, they will discuss our problems in constructive terms, or at least terms that clarify the possible solutions.” Today’s responsible citizens of western democracies, disillusioned with the performance of their leaders, display even more apathy than their 1960s counterparts: barely half bother to go to the polls and most no longer see their leaders as role models. The “possible solutions,” to war with Iraq in 2003, for example, were not clarified by US President George W. Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair precisely because they failed to consider the aftermath of their actions. The Iraqi nation may have been grateful for the removal of Saddam Hussein, but insurgency and terrorism ensued instead of peace. In Islamic countries from Algeria to Indonesia, there has been little of what Kennedy called “determined action” on the part of its leaders, and “a better future” has not been created for its citizens. The peoples of sub-Saharan Africa have fared even worse: having thrown off the yoke of European colonization half a century ago, their leaders have not shown signs that they are ready to discuss their “problems in constructive term[s],” but have instead delivered only corruption and human misery. Ethiopia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe are but three obvious examples of this failure of intelligent leadership.
Too many of today’s leaders fail to accomplish the objectives that Kennedy proposed, in large part because they simply lack good judgement: their intellect is not up to the job. But is not a strong intellect incompatible with sturdy leadership? Is not an intellectual an introvert, whereas a leader needs to be an extrovert? There has been much debate about this issue, but I will try here to show that intellectual prowess and leadership are not necessarily incompatible. Plato, for example, was in favour of the idea of a “philosopher king.” Karl Popper, on the other hand, considered philosophers to make poor leaders.
Plato, one of the West’s earliest political philosophers, espoused governance by an aristocracy: in other words “rule by the best,” who would be selected on the basis of examinations, not by virtue of birth or wealth. While leaders would be chosen based on merit and ability, such a ruler, once in office, would have the powers of a king. To Plato the checks and balances of democracy implied a state subjected to an irresponsible or criminal will. So in the Republic he argues that it is philosophers who are the best equipped to rule — thus the idea of the philosopher king. The fact that he acknowledged that it is unlikely that such a person would actually emerge in the society of his day makes his aspiration a bit of a dream. Yet others nonetheless continued to follow in the same vein.
Erasmus — “the greatest intellect in 16th century Europe” — followed Plato’s vision, arguing that a monarchy was the best form of government, provided the monarch or prince is well-educated. In the 19th century Friedrich Nietzsche echoed these aspirations in his own strident style saying: “The real philosophers … are commanders and lawgivers; they say: ‘Thus shall it be!’” Nietzsche did not have in mind actual rule by philosophers, but merely that those in power should follow the counsel of philosophers. In that sense this is a somewhat different, rather more Germanic, version of Plato’s philosopher king.
On the other side are philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, who was dismissive of Plato: “That kings should become philosophers, or philosophers kings, is not likely to happen; nor would it be desirable, since the possession of power invariably debases the free judgement of reason.” Perhaps to protect his own position, he also pointed out that “It is…indispensable that a king — or a kingly, i.e. self-ruling people — should not suppress philosophers but leave them the right of public utterance.”
Following Kant, Karl Popper takes issue with Plato on two counts. First, he dislikes the proposal of a monarch with total power over his subjects and, second, like most people, he simply cannot envisage philosophers as leaders. In The Myth of the Framework: In Defence of Science and Rationality Popper says: “In a famous and highly dramatic passage of his chief work, Plato demands that philosophers should be kings and, vice versa, that kings — or autocratic rulers — should be fully trained philosophers.… I do not find it an attractive proposal. Quite apart from the fact that I am against any form of autocracy or dictatorship, including the dictatorship of the wisest and best, philosophers do not seem to me to be particularly well suited for the job.” He takes as a specific example the case of Thomas Masaryk, “the creator, first president and, one might say, the philosopher-king of the Czechoslovak Republic. Masaryk was not only a fully trained philosopher, but was also a born statesman and a great and admirable man. And his creation, Czechoslovak Republic, was an unparalleled political achievement. Yet the dissolution of the Old Austrian Empire was also partly Masaryk’s work. And this proved a disaster for Europe and the world. For the instability that followed this dissolution was largely responsible for the rise of Nazism and finally even for the downfall of Masaryk’s own Czechoslovak Republic… The fact that an admirable man and a great statesman like Masaryk was led by certain philosophical ideas to commit so grave a blunder…amounts to a strong argument against Plato’s demand that philosophers should rule”
Have I perhaps overstated the actual possibility of a philosopher-king? Is the ideal really just a dream? Possibly. If we interpret “philosopher” in the sense used by Kant and Popper this may be true. Yet even Popper acknowledges that such people mount the stage of governance from time to time. It is the effectiveness of the combination that he criticizes. Philosopher-rulers fail only if their goals are, as in Masaryk’s case, flawed. So it behoves me to provide other examples. If my argument is true, that cerebral rulers are not only possible, but preferable to our current rulers, then there should be many instances of persons, scattered throughout history, who were endowed with a fine intellect and a simultaneous ability to lead.
My belief, then, is that the qualities of leadership and a good intellect are not incompatible. However I do not wish to imply that leaders should be “intellectuals” as such. Apart from the fact that ‘intellectual’ as a noun has a slightly derisory meaning, there is Albert Einstein’s wise remark that “We should take care not to make the intellect our god. It has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. It cannot lead, it can only serve.” I am instead using the word intellectual as an adjective to mean “blessed with a good intellect,” which the leader applies to the benefit of his people. Charisma is an important element, but not if used improperly. So tyrannical warlords who brought nothing but death and destruction (Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, Stalin, Hitler and Mao) I do not consider. Instead I will offer as examples four rulers who — blessed both with a good intellect and the qualities of leadership — contributed positively to the people under their sway. To illustrate the fact that time and geography play no role in their emergence, my examples are taken from ancient Rome, from Western Europe and North America in the 18th century, and from the Middle East in the 20th.
Hadrian (76 – 138) has been considered the most remarkable of all the Roman emperors. His intense energy drove him to practically every corner of his empire so that he became better known, to more of his subjects, than any other Roman ruler. He personally led his troops into action, a born leader; yet he was also astute enough to consolidate the empire by limiting its extent in the northern and eastern provinces. According to Larousse encyclopaedia, Hadrian’s “intellectual qualities were unrivalled, his curiosity omnivorous and his memory astonishing. He was a connoisseur of the arts, and also possessed all the abilities of a great statesman.”
If Elizabeth I of England was Europe’s most intellectual monarch of the sixteenth century, then Frederick II, known as “Frederick the Great” (1712 – 1786), fulfilled that role in the eighteenth. Frederick’s energies were devoted to intellectual pursuits, to reforming life within Prussia, and to turning it from an insignificant backwater into a major nation through the acquisition of new lands. If that meant war, so be it. He succeeded in all his objectives. When Frederick met Voltaire in 1736, in Strasbourg, they were, within minutes, discussing “the immortality of the soul, liberty and Plato’s androgynies.” Thus began a friendship and literary collaboration that would last, despite constant bickering, for over forty years. Voltaire was positively effusive about Frederick, calling him: “a man who gives battle as readily as he writes an opera; who takes advantage of all the hours that other kings waste following a dog chasing after a stag; he has written more books than any of his contemporary princes has sired bastards; and he has won more victories than he has written books.”
Under Frederick’s rule torture of civilians ceased and in 1763 Frederick tried to abolish serfdom. The law was reformed, and judges left it alone. Death sentences needed to be ratified by Frederick, but these were rarely signed and then only for extreme cases of murder. Punishment that should have been meted out to offenders was often withheld. Newspapers were not censored, nor were peoples’ views. No constraints were placed on religious worship, and Frederick (who was a protestant) built a Roman Catholic cathedral in Berlin, despite his hatred of that faith. He even considered building a mosque to encourage Turks to come to Prussia, as he felt that mixed races produce intelligent people. In 1757 the Holy Roman Empire expelled Prussia and declared war on it. The three largest nations in Europe — Russia, Austria and France, aided by Spain and Sweden — now set out to annihilate the upstart Prussia. But they were in for a surprise.
Determination and astute tactics won Frederick two great battles. Napoleon remarked that “it was not the army that defended Prussia for seven years against the three European powers, it was Frederick the Great.” And when standing next to Frederick’s coffin in the Garrison Church at Potsdam, he said “Hats off, gentlemen — if he were still alive we should not be here.” What Frederick II did was to set a climate in the German-speaking world that was fair to the people and conducive to culture. If ever there was a philosopher-king, it was Frederick: Plato would have recognised him instantly.
Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826) could read Latin and Greek with ease. His innate inquisitiveness was honed at William and Mary College in Williamsburg by his teacher Dr. William Small. According to John Dos Passos, “it was Small who first opened his mind to the philosopher’s world … Young Jefferson had application. He had energy and vast curiosity … In his walks and talks with Small he established a connection with the main currents of the adventurous intellect of Europe which was not to be interrupted throughout his long life.” By 1774, Jefferson was putting his views on colonial rule into print: A Summary View of the Rights of British America was read not only in Philadelphia (eagerly), but also in London (less so). Two years later, Jefferson (‘the pen’) was drafting the Declaration of Independence with John Adams (‘the voice’). Jefferson spent the five years between 1784 and 1789 in France. He watched the rumblings of revolutionary activity (not yet those of the tumbrils), and he liked what he saw. As he wrote in a letter to a colleague, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” Ahem. In France, Jefferson’s eclectic interests were given free reign. He studied everything concerning agriculture — for future use on his own plantation — from the production of wine to the growth of a special sort of rice that he had seen in Vercelli during a voyage to Italy.
Jefferson’s style of leadership as President — “government is best which governs least” — was somewhat like Washington’s: he left the able ministers he had appointed to get on with their departments, exercising personal control only occasionally. An example that illustrates both aspects is also one of Jefferson’s greatest achievements as president: the Louisiana Purchase (for $15 million), which more than doubled the size of the nation. Conceived by Jefferson in Washington, it was negotiated by Robert Livingston and James Monroe in Paris. And what did the restless sixty-five year old Jefferson do in his retirement? True to his enquiring and restive mind, that can only be compared to that of Leonardo da Vinci, he threw himself into a continuous bustle of building and farming, developing a new estate, fabricating nails and cloth, trying his hands at milling, and launching a state university for Virginia. Raising the necessary finance would have daunted a younger man, but the eighty-two year old founder could gaze with pride at the buildings as the first students arrived in 1825. And yet the one flaw in Jefferson’s concept of reason remained. Asked ten years earlier to lend his support to an antislavery clause, Jefferson demurred “this enterprise is for the young; for those who can follow it up, and bear it through to its consummation.” Had he thrown his weight behind emancipation, the Civil War might well have been avoided. On the two-hundredth anniversary of Jefferson’s birth, Franklin Roosevelt inaugurated the Jefferson Memorial in Washington with the words: “Thomas Jefferson believed, as we believe, in Man. He believed, as we believe, that men are capable of their own government, and that no king, no tyrant, no dictator can govern for them as well as they can govern for themselves.”
The American Revolution was fired by commanding intellectuals; the French and Russian revolutions were ignited by intellectuals without much command. What was unique about the Ottoman Empire at the start of the 20th century is that revolution was brought about by an intellectual commander, Kemal Atatürk (1881 – 1938). In his youth he read Rousseau and Voltaire, as well as John Stuart Mill. During World War I, Kemal found himself stationed at Gallipoli. A joint force of British, Australians and New Zealanders had managed to land in an attempt to knock Turkey out of the war. This was not what the high command had expected, but it was precisely what Kemal presumed they would do. In the confusion, he was given temporary command of the defence. At last he could show his mettle, and he did. According to Patrick Kinross in Atatürk: The Rebirth of a Nation, “by his flair, his sense of urgency, the sureness of his decisions and the insistence of his leadership he had, at the outset of an invasion on the lines he had predicted, saved the Turks from a defeat which might well have opened the road to Constantinople.”
After the war, Kemal realised that the Ottoman regime was no longer viable. The time had come to change his role from soldier to statesman. By 1922 he was President of the new republic of Turkey. This he now began to modernise. First to go was the fez. Next the veil. Women began to enter the professions. By 1928 he set about replacing the script of the Ottoman Turks, which was that used by Arabs and Persians. He was now an internationally known leader, with an interest in the affairs of other nations. A German colleague’s comment, that whereas Hitler had enslaved a free people, he had freed an enslaved nation, pleased him. He predicted the course of events with remarkable accuracy. To General Douglas MacArthur, who visited him in 1934, he expressed his fear regarding the influence of Germany over the rest of Europe. “The moment these seventy million people, who are industrious and disciplined and have extraordinary dynamism, get caught by a new political element which will stir up their nationalist ambitions, they will have recourse to the liquidation of the Versailles Treaty.” He predicted that war would break out between 1940 (later revised to 1939) and 1945 that the British would be unable to rely on the French. The Maginot Line he considered useless, as anyone could circumvent it, which is precisely what the Germans did. He forecast that Germany would occupy all of Europe except Britain and Russia, but that eventually America would enter the war, which would result in Germany’s defeat. It is hard to imagine a more prescient and intellectual commander, both in war and in peace.
Politics is the only profession in the world where second-raters reach the top. Their course is driven not by intellectual substance, but by ambition, self-aggrandisement and spin. One of the most important challenges of our time — as significant as those of climate change and energy supply — is to ensure that our politicians possess the right qualities of intellect and leadership. Although largely innate, some honing of skills is undoubtedly possible. Intellectual prowess is more difficult to acquire than leadership skills: one’s IQ, for example, stays much the same from birth to death. So how might a budding politician learn the necessary skills? Not in the practice of law, nor even in the participation in party politics at the grass roots level. Instead I propose the setting up of “statecraft academies,” similar to business schools or military staff colleges, where potential, high calibre, leaders can improve their skills. It is from such a pool of aspiring politicians that the public should elect its leaders. Charisma, TV ratings, and other indices of popularity should play second fiddle to intellectual rigour. What we need are leaders with a little less pugnacity and more intellectual ability. As the French political philosopher Joseph de Maitre observed, “Every nation has the government it deserves.”
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