When I was in high school, a
cousin who was in college told me about Plato’s vision of a philosopher
king. The next year, when I was myself
in college, I read The Republic and came face to face with this concept
for myself. The notion was intoxicating.
On the cusp of adulthood,
and in the first generation of my family to obtain a college education, it
seemed to me perfectly reasonable that some people were smarter and more moral
than others. It also seemed sensible
that these people should run society for the benefit of all—especially the less
qualified.
I had not yet run into the
Lord Acton’s caution that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts
absolutely. Hence it seemed to me, that as
one of the best and brightest, this would never be my fate. I was too pure, too insightful, and too
committed to be seduced into what we later called “the dark side.”
Evidently Barack Obama came
to a similar conclusion. He must always
have known he was smarter than his peers and must surely have had confidence in
his own motives. He would thus be the
one in his family to reconstruct the world along more “just” lines; lines his
parents, and mine, could never produce.
Clearly Obama is still
intoxicated with this flattering assessment.
He still believes he knows better than others because he is smarter and less
tainted than they. As a result, he
constantly lectures us on why his signature programs are indispensable. We may not understand the wisdom of his
stimulus package or Obamacare, but he understands what we do not.
Liberals, in general, have
an inflated sense of their own abilities and intentions. For this reason, they dismiss the intellectual
capacities and moral aptitudes of both ordinary people and their political
adversaries. This being so, these others
must simply shut up and do what they are told.
So pure do Obama and his
liberal fellow travelers feel that they have no compunctions about distorting
the truth. If less talented, or virtuous,
individuals do not comprehend what is good for them—or for society at large—it
is essential that they be manipulated into complying with the policies of their
superiors.
Mind you, Obama and his
Democratic allies are no less intelligent or less moral than others. The problem is that they are no more so and
therefore are often seduced into behaving foolishly. Their judgment is so thoroughly warped by
intellectual arrogance that they regularly misperceive reality.
Obamacare is in big trouble,
but they do not see it. The economy is
being held back by their fiscal irresponsibility, but they are oblivious to the
connection. The budget deficit is
unsustainable, but they are not worried because the collapse is not yet upon
us.
Obama and his allies could
use a dose of humility; nevertheless their overriding concern is with winning
the political wars. They are so
convinced of their own merit that they deem it vital to sweep away the
opposition so they can grow the government and save the less gifted from
themselves.
Sadly, too many Americans
are willingly swayed by impossible promises and unrelenting invective. Ceaselessly told that their president knows
best and that Republicans are dastardly villains, they are prepared to give the
nation’s chief executive yet another chance.
Plato’s model for his
Republic was Sparta. Unlike Athens, this
state was a military camp run from the top down. Moreover, in Plato’s time, Sparta had just
defeated his native city in the Peloponnesian War. Thus, from his aristocratic perspective, it
looked like the wave of the future.
It was not. Sparta was soon exhausted by its overweening
ambitions and reduced to a backwater.
The lesson here is that people frequently do not become alert to a
danger until there is a catastrophe—and then often when it is too late.
Let us hope Americans
realize their peril before Obama’s self-certified brilliance and immature
narcissism lead us to our doom.
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
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