LDST 101 Leadership and the Humanities SPRING 2011 Peter Iver Kaufman [email protected]; 289-8003 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From quotes to questions: Keith Thomas: “The humanities offer an indispensable antidote to the vices which inevitably afflict a democratic, capitalist society. They counter the dumbing down of the media by asserting the complexity of things . . . and they challenge the evasiveness and mendacity of politicians by placing a premium on intellectual honesty.” Really? Thomas has a rather ambitious agenda for the humanities. Can the humanities somehow take on the media and effectively challenge sly, evasive politicians? And How do the humanities put a premium on honesty? Aurelius Augustine: Justice having been removed, what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale? What are criminal gangs but petty kingdoms? A gang is a group of persons under the command of a leader, bound by an agreement or covenant that governs the association in which plunder is divided according to a constitution of sorts. . . . For the answer given by a captured pirate to Alexander the Great was amusing but true. When great Alexander asked why the pirate terrorized seafarers, the latter boldly replied, suggesting that his purpose and Alexander’s were identical. When I do what I do with a small vessel, he noted, I am called a pirate. Because you do the same with a mighty navy, you are called an emperor.” Does the anecdote prove Augustine’s point about government and larceny? If you were Alexander how would you answer the pirate’s equation? Reinhold Niebuhr: “In political and moral theory ‘realism’ denotes a disposition to take into account all factors in a social and political situation, which offer resistance to established norms, particularly factors of self-interest and power. In the words of one notorious ‘realist,’ Machiavelli, the purpose of the realist is ‘to follow the truth of the matter rather than the imagination of it; for many have pictures of republics and principalities which have never been seen.’ This definition of ‘realism’ implies idealists are subject to illusions about social realities, which indeed they are.” Are idealists ill-equipped to be effective leaders or change agents because they underestimate resistances? Given their sense of the formidable character of “resistances” and of the pervasiveness of self-interest, might realists be tempted to accept “established norms” that need changing or to grow deaf to legitimate calls for change? Robert Penn Warren: “. . . Because [Adam Stanton] is a romantic, he has a picture of the world in his head, and when the world doesn’t conform in any respect to the picture, he wants to throw the world away, even if it means throwing out the baby with the bath.” Are romantics ill-equipped to be effective leaders? What qualities/virtues might a romantic who fits this description bring to leadership challenges, qualities or virtues that realists might lack?Phil Ochs: “So good to be alive when the eulogy is read. The climax of emotion, the worship of the dead.” Can we recognize “greatness” in a leader while s/he lives and leads or are all eulogies of current leaders premature? Is there something in us (the worshippers) that compels us to deny our leaders the pleasure of hearing their eulogies or is it just common sense to let time pass before we look for a basis to judge the competence, effectiveness, and virtue of our leaders? Michel de Montaigne: “He who fears what he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.” We may like to think of leaders as fearless, and Montaigne would seem to be saying that fear is debilitating. You’ll soon read Franklin Delano Roosevelt telling followers that they have nothing to fear but fear. Yet, by “suffering” in anticipation the fearful consequences of one’s conduct and policy, leaders might avoid those consequences. Does that make sense? Might “suffer[ing] what [one] fears” make one a more competent, compassionate leader? Under what circumstances would fear, shame, and suffering be counted among a leader’s assets or virtues? Martha Nussbaum: “Nations all over the world will soon be producing generations of useful, docile, technically trained machines rather than complete citizens who can think for themselves, criticize tradition, and understand the significance of another person’s sufferings and achievements.” Nussbaum thinks that the humanities could and should serve as an antidote. Do you share Nussbaum’s distress? If docile citizens are useful and well-trained, should we object that somehow they are docile and therefore incomplete citizens? Is it fair to compare them with machines? How important is it for leaders to criticize tradition? In this section of LDST 101, we’re going to raise these questions as well as others that you’ll find in the schedule portion of the syllabus. We do so not because the answers lay at the foundation of leadership studies. The asking does. The conversations generated by our asking should draw our various premises into the open, problematize some answers we may take for granted, prompt intriguing encounters with problems, with problem-solvers, and with a number of issues we might otherwise have left unexplored. We’ll spend a few sessions contemplating why we’re here (in a class on leadership and the humanities, at a university, at this university, and on this planet--three sessions should be sufficient). Then we shall consider whether and why we need leaders and try to find standards to measure the effectiveness and integrity of leaders. We’ll talk with some “old masters”--Machiavelli, Thomas More, Shakespeare. We’ll visit with folks, in fact and fiction, sifting problems and formulating public policy during this and the last century. We’ll look at the influence of race, rhetoric and magic that pose challenges for leaders and for those who study them. But before you agree that this might be a good way to spend parts of your semester and strap yourselves into this challenge, attend to the next section on . . . Requirements and Grades Lively, informed encounters with our questions, obviously, require your lively and informed participation in class discussions, but I’ve never found a satisfactory way to “grade”