Reagan, Thatcher, Gorbachev, Machiavelli... Where are they now?

Poor Nicolo Machiavelli!  He really gets a bad rap, doesn’t he?  I mean, just because the well-worn phrase “the end justifies the means” can be traced to his masterwork, The Prince, that doesn’t mean he was a bad guy, does it?  But, that’s the way he’s perceived.  Even people who don’t know what he has written or who he is know that a “Machiavellian scheme” is a bad thing.

More high-minded people point to how he turned the concept of a virtuous society on its head.  The ancient Greek philosophers – Aristotle and Socrates – defined a virtuous society as the result of the good works of its citizens.  To their way of thinking, the means were more important than the end.  Old Nick turned that concept of virtue on its head.  To him, virtue was about being crafty, astute or sly.  It referred to the ability of a leader to deal with whatever comes their way – to be decisive and get results.

The Prince was a handbook for the heirs to the Medici fortune not a blueprint for utopia.   The Greeks were idealists.  Machiavelli was a pragmatist.

Most often this blog turns on “issues” and policies.  I am an issues-oriented guy and those who take the time to read this fit the same mold.  We decry the misguided media and wonder aloud why the mass of voters doesn’t seem to care about the issues.  We parse the words of political candidates as if they will actually do (or have a chance to do) what they promise in campaigns.  Naïve idealists that we are, we actually think that policy matters more than politics and that what politicians say, they should do.

Alas, most political leaders have no opportunity to pursue the policies on which they campaign.  Some have no illusions.  They campaign to get elected.  Others may be sincere but their best intentions are overcome by events.  The administrations of LBJ and the much-maligned Jimmy Carter were not defined by their political campaigns.  They were defined by what the world handed them, the Vietnam War and the Iranian hostage crisis, respectively.

What was handed Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher was Mikhail Gorbachev.  What was interesting is that Gorby brought them an opportunity to pursue ideas in which they believed (unlike the duo mentioned above).

More than any world leader in the 80’s, Gorbachev determined how the 20^th Century would draw to a close.  His policies of “perestroika” (restructuring)and “glasnost” (openness) led to freely contested elections and liberalization of the economy.  He foresaw the economic collapse of the Soviet model and hastened it.  The Soviet Union may not have gone so quietly had it not been for Gorbachev, a pragmatist who saw that he didn’t have the resources to continue the Cold War.  Would we think of Reagan and Thatcher in the same way had the Soviet Union dragged on for another decade or two?  How about Helmut Kohl?  Could he have unified Germany and worked with Mitterrand toward the development of the European Union?

In 2000, George Bush campaigned against Clinton’s policies in the former Yugoslavia, calling it nation building, a policy that often results in failure.  But, 9/11 changed everything.  Bush soon found himself nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan.

His successor, Barack Obama, campaigned against Bush’s policies in those two far away lands.  Once inaugurated, he was off to the Middle East to address the Arab public so as to differentiate himself from his predecessor. But, the financial crisis and his response to it define his first term more than any ideology he espoused. 

It was not the policies on which Bush and Obama campaigned that mattered.  It was their character and their ability to make a decision in moments of crisis and stick with them. 

It’s great to focus on policy as a framework for the direction of the country (any country).  However, it’s naïve to think that the political and international landscape is so benign as to permit a candidate to actually follow their prescription for governance.  It is usually a crisis and a leader’s response to it that defines their tenure.  And, it’s their ability to embrace the Machiavellian concept of virtue that determines their success. 

Policy wonks may decry the way in which the media – and most voters – focus on personality or, to put in high-mindedly, character of the candidates.  But, at the end of the day, character is more important than policies. 

WHO WILL LEAD?

Of Mothers and Sons…. A Dedication

Mom and Dad on their Honeymoon

In my family, if you wanted to know how to do things right, you had to find my Dad. He was a perfectionist; some would say obsessive about getting the details right. His first jobs after leaving the Army Air Corps were draftsman, time and motion study and machinist. All of those jobs played to his strengths: attention to detail, focus on doing things the right way and pride in a great result. He could fell a tree, build a house or pilot a boat. In my life, I saw him do all of those things and more. (For the record, the only strand of his DNA that transferred to me was piloting a boat.)

On the other hand, if you wanted to know how to do the right thing, you had to find my Mom. Like most women of her day, her job was to raise children and run a household. Opportunities to become a doctor, lawyer, politician or captain of industry were limited. If you asked her what she did, she would say, “I raised three sons”. That was her life’s work.

She was easy to find. In a house with three boys, the only place she could be sure she would see us each day was the kitchen table. So, that is where she held court.

Mom taught us a set of values, mostly by her example. She taught us to “do the right thing”.

What does that mean?

It means treating people with respect no matter their station in life. It means being upfront with people. It means setting a good example as she always endeavored to do. It also means having the “courage of your convictions”. She said that often when I was a young child. It was engraved in my psyche a dozen years before I knew what it meant. What does it mean? It means always act on what you believe; never back down from that

More than anything, Mom taught me that I had the potential to do anything I wanted in life. All I had to do was work hard and stay focused. She even had a little ditty to remind me. It went like this:

Good, better, best.
Never let it rest.
Until your good is better and your better best.

There was a corollary to this concept. It was a rule actually. A ‘B’ is not an acceptable grade.

Married at 18 and a mother at 20, Mom was still growing up herself when I was a young boy. Yet, she had the wisdom to know that sons are not like daughters.

There has been much written about mothers and daughters. The best of it is captured in a famous poem by Julia Kasdorf titled "What I Learned from my Mother". But, the relationship between mothers and sons is different. While women of my mother’s generation prepared their daughters for a lifelong relationship, they prepared their sons to fly the coop. There is a process of letting go that begins in the teen years and culminates in the departure for college. Sons must be ready to take on the world.



My two brothers and I needed to be independent… strong enough to weather any storm and to take care of a family of our own. By the time I left home at 18, I had the courage of my convictions. I was confident I could handle anything. She believed I could pursue any path with success and so did I. I have her to thank for that.

American society – our freedoms, our Constitution, the free enterprise system – was based upon a shift in the teachings of philosophers. In his best-selling book, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?, Michael Sandel contrasts the teachings of eighteenth century philosophers like Immanuel Kant with the ancient Greeks such as Aristotle. Kant argued that “principles of justice that define our rights should not rest on any particular concept of virtue. A just society respects each person’s freedom to choose his own conception of what is just”. It was a perfect anti-dote to the abuses of European kings who ruled during the preceding era.

Over the last couple of centuries, our freedom has fostered a diverse society where the norms of behavior that I grew up with have split apart. It is often said that we are “a nation of laws”. So, if we are to tolerate diversity of behavioral norms, we then must rely upon our elected representatives to set forth what behavior is legal and what behavior is punishable.

A good friend of mine often asks the philosophical question, “When did we go from being a principle based society to a rules based society?” It’s a good question. But, the timing doesn’t really matter. What matters is that’s where we are: a society whose standards of behavior are set by what is legal not what is principled. That’s a much lower standard.

The ancient Greeks, like Aristotle, taught that society should reflect the virtue of its people. A virtuous society therefore is created by people who agree on standards of virtue. Although she never studied the philosophy of the ancient Greeks, Mom would agree with Aristotle. She was a principled woman who could not influence societal outcomes on a grand scale. Her contribution would be to raise three sons who understand virtue or principled behavior and demonstrated it in the way we dealt with the world around us.

Mothers' Day 2011

My brothers and I are very different people. Despite our different personalities, I know I can rely on them. I know we share her values. I know they will always do what’s right and, moreover, that we three all know instinctively what that means. In the vernacular of Mom’s time, she raised us to be “stand up guys”. In today’s vernacular, no one has to tell us to “man up”.

The values I learned from Mom – respect for others, the courage of my convictions, pursuing your own path own life – were learned by them as well.

Though we are all different, we are also the same.


We are her life’s work -- her three sons.

Angelina “Lee” Calia passed away on July 10, 2011. We loved her very much.