The Essence of a Great Leader/Personal Pillars of Admiration:
As so often in areas of human nature I tend to start with Lincoln. Lincoln wrote the book on understanding human nature---human motives, limitations, aspirations, biases, strengths, weaknesses, and needs. I don't think a person can be a great leader without thoroughly understanding human nature. A person can achieve things, some even big things, but that does not make them a great leader. For a start, a great leader does not miss the forest for the sake of the trees. Great leaders see the BIG picture. From there great leaders understand timing and priorities. To move large numbers of people from point A to point B on great and meaningful issues, a great leader will often seem hesitant, indecisive, and pandering. Lincoln, at many points in his Presidency, pleased virtually no one-- he was no Terrell Owenish immovable force---Lincoln was more like a steel cable that travels from point A to point B but en-route sways this way, then that way---but in the end, with planned finality----the cable is going to arrive at point B as planned. Both sides at the time, feeling the cable en-route sway, get enough things to cheer about to keep the situation manageable.
Great people, with isolated exceptions, are self made products of the masses, not pampered isolated products of inherited wealth. To be born with a silver spoon in your mouth is seldom a good omen for great leadership. To live, in any fashion, gated away from diversity or the unfortunate, or God's gift of our planetary environment, is to miss the forest for the sake of the trees and leave one with a level of prejudice, insensitivity, and greed incompatible with true greatness. No one is truly great who does not create a better world for all the current evolved entities of evolution. Somewhere, in the complexity of this great leader question, must lie a simple 'essence' of what it means to title some one a great leader. To lack the qualities to be a great leader is no failure---but to not follow a great leader is another matter. If enough people follow bad leaders the quality of life for human and other species suffers beyond comprehension---tolerated only by the indifference, mental braces, blinders, and illusionary religious beliefs of too many---beliefs piled up to justify the carnage and misery imposed on others. It is always 'onward some kind of soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of (some Deity)' and I forget the rest of the hymn. Today, across the globe, these kind of warriors create all kinds of killing fields in more and more lands, in maniacal genocidal or destructive surges, as humans engage is these self serving battles to gain control over enough natural or economic resources to support their own genetic, political, or religious clan. It is so bad now that while most of us are aware and disapprove of killing 2 million Jews in World War II, it hardly registers that 2 million Vietnamese were killed for no valid reasons, while violence amongst humans is so common now on such a grand scale that I doubt even 1% of Americans or other global societies even know there have been 5 million murders in the Congo in recent years. When I become aware of stuff like this it is surreal, beyond the pale. When Lincoln looked at how the lives of so many of the common people were being played out, he not only understood the injustices, but used his many talents to right the ship and steer it back in the right direction. That is greatness.
In it's simplest form, those greatest amongst us and those greatest in our past, lead or led their followers with the principle 'FAIR IS FAIR'. I am actually tired of the following self centered expression always issued in the tone of a demand---"God Bless America". When we are not demanding that He bless us, we pray that God will interfere on our behalf, or the behalf of others, to make things better for ourselves or others. The assumption is always made during this long evolved process of evolution, a process created by God, that humans are either the favored or end product of His process. Maybe so, but it is suspect in my mind. We even assume God made man in his own image. That seems a stretch. Then we assume God waits for our demands to bless us, and we pray for God to manipulate things in this evolutionary system to our favor. This seems rather arrogant to me. I guess it is human nature to always want to run the show, to have control over our Benefactor, to use faith---not reason--- to justify any UNFAIR IS FAIR selfish behavior.
I suppose most everyone has their own unique pillars of admiration. That is just the way it is. These objects of admiration impact on our own perspectives of life, influence our own behavior, help select our priorities in life, serve as the building blocks for our own ethics, our own goals, our own ability to interact with others, and influence to whom we form friendships. The number of pillars supporting our own persona varies a lot. The smaller our world the fewer the pillars. The nature of our environment colors our choices. There is no comprehensive mathematical equation available to measure the limitations of our intellect which governs any of this. Who one admires, another may despise.
I try here to identify my own unique pillars of admiration. Since I read a lot, most of mine come via that route. Some are people from the past and some are people part of my present life. I think here I will limit this to leaders and peers from the past or non personal friends in the present, and exclude any friends currently living---that could get a little touchy. In some respects these are my FAIR IS FAIR heroes. Lincoln is my all time favorite, but after that there is no order to this. These are my people ingredients---my own people build people mantra----which have contributed the most to my own persona. These are the people, with some exceptions (*), who lived their lives for the betterment of others as much as for themselves. Those with a star are pillars of my admiration for other reasons.
Lincoln
Jane Addams
James Baldwin
Barry Goldwater
Teddy Roosevelt
Harry Truman
Albert Einstein
Andrew Carnegie
Eugene Watson
LeBrae*
Louis Moscarello
Toni Sterner*
James Hart Jr.
Ray Williams*
Ruth Garvey*
Mae Merritt*
Bill McHugh
Harry Repp*
Edward Potts
Victoria Woodhull
Terrell Owens*
Malcolm X
Peter Singer
John Stuart Mill
Thomas Jefferson
Martin Luther King
Winston Churchill
Sojourner Truth
Barack Obama
Will Rogers*
Mark Twain*
Mike Royko
Frederick Douglass
Confucious
Jesus
Buddha
Bud Kamp*
Bud James
Evelyn James
FDR
Eleanor Roosevelt
Robert Kennedy
Ellen Degeneres
Mario Cuomo
Dalai Lama
George Washington
Robert E. Lee
Dick Juaron*
Paul Robeson
Gandhi
Tecumseh
Jimmy Carter
Che Guevara
Jomo Kenyatta
Nelson Mendela
Ho Chi Minh
Thomas Paine
Andrei Sakarov
Those above are 58 ingredients in the mix plus some other personal friends still alive, plus numerous pets over the years whose dumb ass contributions (the pets) to my own sensibilities are there, if difficult to pinpoint. Sometimes, alone in nature, in the stillness which abounds, I can sense the presence of these cerebral companions listed above---and I come the closest I will ever come to feeling a part of God's evolutionary process. These days I wonder whether God ever interferes with the laws which govern this process, and if he does, how often and in what way. Clearly, if He does, it is not often, and that explains so many unjust tragedies. The evolutionary process, left on its own, favors no species, no individual of any species, certainly no country, and moves ever upward in complexity at an abysmally slow glacial pace. It is like all the molecules in the planet remain forever, just get rearranged in ever more complex fashions, and these mixes, in the short run may be better or worse for any species or individuals, but in the long run, the evolving is always to a higher level. So what really matters? Maybe little at our own personal level.
There is something else besides 'fair is fair', and 'do unto others as you would have others do unto you' which, for many of those listed above applies. It is hard to define, but is best explained by the following anecdote: As the casket of Lincoln passed by, one of the mourners lining the street was especially emotional. Someone asked the emotional mourner, "Did you know Lincoln?" The mourner replied, "No, but he knew me". That is why Lincoln was great. Maybe that is why Obama draws record crowds to his rallies. "Do you know Obama?" "No, but he knows me".
These are the best of times; these are the worst of times. The evolutionary engine chugs on and where it is all heading nobody knows.
