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Chapter 1 excerpted from
Democracy and Leadership
On Pragmatism and Virtue
Eric Thomas Weber
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Weber, Eric Thomas.
Democracy and leadership : on pragmatism and virtue / Eric Thomas Weber.
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1. Democracy--Moral and ethical aspects 2. Leadership--Moral and ethical aspects. I. Title.
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Contents
Preface
vii
I: The Nature of Leadership and the Democratic Turn
1 Leadership, Old and New: Aims and Definitions
2 Lessons from Plato
3 Dewey on Democratic Leadership
4 Democratic Political Leadership
1
3
31
59
81
II: Four Challenges for Democratic Leadership
5 Wisdom in Pragmatic Humanism
6 How Is Leadership Learned?
7 Democratic Leadership, East and West
8 Ethics and Justice for Democratic Leadership
105
107
127
157
173
III: A Test for Democratic Leadership
9 Democracy and Leadership in Mississippi
10 Conclusion
199
201
253
Acknowledgments
257
Appendices
Appendix 1: “Try Charters Schools Experiment Where Others Failing”
Appendix 2: “Cultural Divides: Barriers Remain to Educational
Attainment”
Appendix 3: “Teachers Offer Hope for Mississippi”
263
265
v
267
271
vi
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Contents
Appendix 4: “Mississippians Are Ready for Comprehensive Sex
Education: Social Science and Public Opinion Polls Agree”
275
Bibliography
279
Index
305
About the Author
313
DRAFT
Chapter One
Leadership, Old and New
Aims and Definitions
I. THE AIMS OF THIS BOOK
After twenty-four hundred years, Socrates and Plato remain vital sources of
insight for Western philosophy. Alfred North Whitehead has famously said
that “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” 1 John Dewey, who
has been called America’s philosopher of democracy, 2 said that “Nothing
could be more helpful to present philosophizing than a ‘Back to Plato’ movement.” 3 Dewey thought that we must return to Plato especially when our
thinking gets too abstract and disconnected from the real world. Recent
scholarship agrees with Dewey’s sense of Plato as the quintessentially engaged public philosopher. 4
Despite Plato’s lasting vitality, scholars like Kenneth Ruscio have noted
that “literature on political leadership in democracies rarely draws from political philosophy in any systematic or explicit manner,” and, I would add,
especially not from Plato. 5 I believe that this is most likely due to the strong
authoritarianism that we see in Plato’s works. The totalitarian political strain
his ideas promote clashes jarringly with the contemporary democratic spirit
that has solidly taken root today.
One of Dewey’s contemporaries, the philosopher Karl Popper, argued
that the great teachers, Socrates and Plato, disagreed about the value of
democracy. 6 For Popper, “Socrates was, fundamentally, the champion of the
open society, and a friend to democracy.” 7 By contrast, Popper argued, Plato’s “political programme is purely totalitarian.” 8 When Athenians put Socrates to death, Plato turned against democracy. After all, “Had not Socrates
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been killed by democracy? Had not democracy lost any right to claim him?” 9
On Popper’s view, the fact that Socrates gave his life for democracy meant
that Plato’s turn away from democracy and use of Socrates’s voice in attacking it was a profound betrayal. 10
In Plato’s most influential treatise on political thought, the Republic, written after the death of Socrates, he speaks in Socrates’s name and calls democracy dangerous and superficial. 11 He explains dismissively and disrespectfully that mainly women and children will like democracy, much in the way that
they are attracted to multicolored clothing that catches the eye. 12 Plato’s
strong reaction against Athenians’ decision to kill Socrates may well be one
of the reasons why democracy took so long to develop.
Dewey explained that democracy has only “very, very recently” become
the accepted public ideal that it is. 13 Popper suggested that a crucial shift
took place because of the gross harms and tragic evils that powerful figures
wrought in the modern era. The key change in political thought, as Popper
saw it, occurred in the move away from Plato. He argued that Plato’s main
question “Who should rule?” today is replaced “by the question: How can we
so organize political institutions that bad or incompetent rulers can be prevented from doing too much damage?” 14 The central shift since Plato’s day,
therefore, concerns leadership and the need to limit the harms that people in
positions of authority can do. What is vital to have, according to Popper, is a
system of checks and balances on power. Nevertheless, the public in the
United States and abroad calls for better leadership, 15 and leadership has
been dubbed the crucial test for democracy. 16
In the Republic, Plato argued that democracy was the absence of rulers.
When all people rule themselves and the state together, there is no special
class of guardians designated for the pursuit of virtue. People are free to
commit vice in democracies, therefore, with no rulers setting them on a
unified course toward virtue. In today’s democracies, however, people speak
a great deal about leadership and the need for it. Surveys show a strong
demand for good leadership, 17 yet for Plato, who saw leaders as rulers, the
idea of democratic leadership was a contradiction.
It seems that the public today accepts the idea and necessity of leadership
in democracies, while rejecting the totalitarian conception of rulers. Given
the public importance placed on leadership, one might expect that studies of
leadership would have addressed Plato directly, taking on his challenge.
Instead, it seems that scholars of politics and leadership have largely avoided
Plato and the philosophical tradition. There is a great deal of material written
about leadership, some of it popular and at times in need of more rigor and
philosophical analysis. Some of it is excellent scholarship, however, such as
in histories, psychological studies, and other fields of research that apply
modern scholarship to questions about particular public figures. Very little
philosophical work has addressed leadership. 18
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Leadership, Old and New
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There are two likely reasons why philosophers have avoided the study of
leadership. The first is that in some circles and at different periods there have
been strains of philosophy that intend to be disconnected from practical
issues. In such traditions, scholars have argued that philosophers “corrupt
philosophy” when they apply ethics to the real world. 19 Fortunately, there is
a growing trend in which philosophers increasingly feel the need to connect
the work that they do to public problems. 20 There certainly is a need for
philosophical understanding beyond the walls of the ivory tower. 21
I believe that the second reason why philosophers have been almost entirely absent from the field of leadership studies is Plato’s view that democracy and leadership are at odds. Given that the public continually calls for
better leadership and believes in it, it seems that scholarship is behind the
times. For, if leadership is not inherently in conflict with democracy, and if
leadership is something for which we can educate people, enabling more
people to lead, it seems that we ought to do it.
While we still have much to learn and draw from Plato, we must also
disagree with him about democracy and leadership. My overarching claim is
that there is in fact no necessary conflict between democracy and leadership.
The most important implication of this view, I believe, is that it would be
valuable to develop a substantive theory of democratic leadership. Such a
theory must not be wedded to simple democratic voting mechanisms or decision procedures. Nevertheless, a theory of democratic leadership can be
drawn from an understanding of the classic virtues suffused with democratic
values. Such a theory can only make sense, however, if we also abandon the
idea that leadership is a special or unique class of persons. On my view,
democratic leadership must be understood as a process and one in which all
citizens can engage. This final qualification I call the democratic turn, emphasized especially in chapter 8. Scholars of leadership have begun to infuse
democratic values into theories of leadership, but they preserve the traditional focus on politicians or special persons in positions of power and authority.
Following Dewey, I believe that democracy is radical, and consequently my
proposal is meant to offer a radical democratic turn for understanding leadership as a process, rather than a person. 22
Though I will break with Plato on a fundamental issue, as I have said, I
will nevertheless depend on him and learn from his Republic in the process
of developing my theory of leadership. This is because I believe Plato was
right about the categories of key political virtues, even if he moved to totalitarianism with them, rather than to democracy. Before reviewing the lessons
we can draw from Plato, it is important to get a sense of the public need for a
better understanding of democracy and leadership, the subject of section II of
this chapter. Next, although the scholarship on democracy and leadership is
limited, an brief consideration of a few helpful texts is worthwhile and is the
focus of section III. In section IV, I present a few passages from Plato’s and
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Dewey’s works to help demonstrate how strong a contradiction Plato saw
between democracy and leadership as well as what democracy means for
Dewey. These inspirations will frame the reconstruction I propose next. Then
in section V, I state in my general theory of leadership, drawn from Plato’s
identified virtues of the ideal city, as well as a theory of leadership that I
qualify as democratic. Finally, some sobering passages from Popper in section VI drive home how important it is for the philosophical tradition to
avoid Plato’s mistakes and to update his ideas.
II. THE PUBLIC NEED FOR A THEORY
OF DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP
There are two main reasons why the public has need of a theory of democratic leadership. The first reason is that people often are not clear about what
they mean when they say that there is a great need for leadership. The second
reason is that people generally believe that public affairs should proceed
better than they do.
“Leadership” is commonly used as an honorific term, by which we sometimes refer to people and sometimes to processes. As surveys have shown,
“leadership” is often used simply to mean success. For instance, a survey by
Democracy Corps, “Campaign for American’s Future,” asked 2,000
Americans to rate how serious a problem it is for the country to exhibit
“Failure to make the investments we need in education and research to maintain America’s leadership.” 23 This sense of the term “leadership” suggests a
combination of persons who will be leaders, the process of leading within the
country and leading internationally, and the notion of America’s success—its
excellence.
One way of thinking that might challenge the call for leadership is to say
that people just mean that they want success, or for things to go well, when
they say that better leadership is needed. Jim Collins makes this point in his
popular book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and
Others Don’t. He writes,
every time we attribute everything to “Leadership,” we’re no different from
people in the 1500s. We’re simply admitting our ignorance. Not that we
should become leadership atheists (leadership does matter), but every time we
throw our hands up in frustration—reverting back to “Well, the answer must
be Leadership!”—we prevent ourselves from gaining deeper, more scientific
understanding about what makes great companies tick. 24
Collins’s insights in his book on business are focused upon profit-seeking
contexts, yet his point here is more general. Plus, while many Americans
have a tendency to believe that good business leaders will make good public
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Leadership, Old and New
7
leaders, 25 Collins is quite clear in his subsequent work that he believes this is
often false. 26 To suggest that leadership is needed can mean, as Collins
points out, the obvious claim when things are going wrong that they should
be done better. This says nothing about how things ought to change, what
outcomes would be best or more desirable, or how to go about achieving that
different result. Leadership also often seems to be used to denote people who
are successful at achieving goals that are beyond the ken of most individuals.
So once again, what we want are better people to help achieve better outcomes. What makes outcomes better is precisely the question that theories of
leadership should consider. Thus, we see the need to understand and give
substance to the meaning of leadership.
A comparison of two studies will help demonstrate Collins’s point about
viewing leadership as success as well as the consequent need for theory that I
suggest. The 2008 Democracy Corps survey found that 96 percent of people
said that insufficient investment in maintaining American leadership was a
problem. This remarkable consensus only makes sense if the people polled
interpreted “leadership” here broadly, as another word for success. One
would expect audiences to think that failing to do what is necessary for
success, however undefined, is a bad thing. If Collins is right—and on this
mark, I believe that he is—then the equivalent question was essentially
whether or not America should do more to be successful.
Compare now the Democracy Corps survey with a substantive issue poll.
Leadership on clean energy and on energy efficiency, for instance, was
shown to be in high demand, according to 61 percent of the 1,011 respondents in one poll, 27 yet with far less consensus than the 2008 Democracy
Corps survey exhibited. The more definite a survey question becomes about
leadership, it seems, the more divided people tend to be about their endorsements. So when people say that they want leadership, it is not necessarily
clear what this implies in terms of concrete issues.
Whether Americans agree or disagree about specific problems, the people’s call for better leadership is overwhelming. Citizens’ approval of their
elected officials has reached an all-time low, according to reporter Alana
Horowitz writing about a set of polls in November 2011. On the approval
rating for the United States Congress, Horowitz writes,
Last month, a New York Times poll found that Congress’ [sic.] approval rating
fell to an all-time low of 9 percent. Meanwhile, a recent Gallup poll found that
11 percent of people found polygamy “morally acceptable.” Additionally, 30
percent of Americans expressed approval of pornography. The Fix posted a
telling chart created by Senator Michael Bennet that compared Congress’ [sic.]
approval rating to a slew of unpopular people, things and ideas. “U.S. going
communist” received an 11 percent approval rating, banks netted 23 percent
and the BP oil spill received a shocking 16 percent . . . It’s also worth noting
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that, during the Watergate scandal, Nixon’s approval rating was at 23 percent. 28
Low Congressional approval ratings are not new. On CBS’s Face the Nation,
Bob Schieffer explained that “To say that Congress is unpopular is about as
surprising as saying the sun rises in the East.” 29 What we can take away from
Shieffer’s observation, then, is that the demand for better leadership has been
constant, not sudden, despite reports like those we hear from Horowitz.
While the need for leadership is not new, the field of leadership studies is,
relatively speaking, and thus its development has a deep and longstanding
reason for growth. I believe that until philosophers return to the study of
leadership, furthermore, a crucial public need will go unfilled. 30
However we interpret criticism of U.S. politicians, reports like those
which Horowitz describes generally agree with studies showing that
Americans long for better leadership. As Joseph Nye explains in The Powers
to Lead, the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University’s John F.
Kennedy School of Government conducted a 2008 poll showing that 80
percent of Americans believed at the time that the country was in a leadership crisis. 31 In a democratic society, in which people are allowed to disagree
profoundly about public and moral matters, this level of consensus about an
ill-defined concept seems unequivocally to demonstrate the public need for
the study and development of leadership for the democratic era.
III. THE ACADEMIC NEED FOR A THEORY
OF DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP
While the public wants better leadership, people generally do not think of
leadership and democracy as being in tension or as contradictory. It is especially scholars who note the difficulty in reconciling these ideas. Even among
scholars, however, few address democratic leadership, something John Kane
and Haig Patapan have also recognized in their essay “The Neglected Problem of Democratic Leadership.” 32 The authors write that “The absence of
scholarship on democratic leadership seems puzzling at a time when centres
[sic] for leadership mushroom across the globe and when books on leadership pour off the presses at an alarming rate.” 33
Kane and Patapan are among a number of scholars who have expressed
the need for a theory of democratic leadership. 34 Further theorists could be
addressed here, but, for my purpose, I will look at the work of two particular
authors who have been closest to my aims in this project, and then two who
particularly provoked me to study democratic leadership, given their doubts
about it. The first two are Thomas Vernor Smith and Kenneth Ruscio. The
latter two are Kathryn Riley and Robert J. Starratt.
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Perhaps the contribution closest to my purpose is Thomas Vernor Smith’s
1925 essay in The Scientific Monthly, “Democratic Leadership.” 35 Smith
addressed Plato, who saw leadership as a matter of authority. Smith’s central
argument is that democratic leadership results after a transition from leadership as authority to leadership as a matter of knowledge and facts. When
leadership has to do with knowledge, rather than authority, anyone can contribute to public guidance. It is worth noting that Smith was a student at the
University of Chicago, where he would have missed the chance to study
directly under John Dewey, but where he would have been influenced by the
“Chicago school” of pragmatism and thereby Dewey, indirectly. 36 Dewey
was a primary influence for thinking about democratic theory and education
at the time of Smith’s writing.
Smith captured the modern sentiment with regard to leadership and authority, explaining that
The gist of [the] modern attitude may be put in a few words: There is no
rightful authority save the authority of the situation. The wise man alone can
be our leader, and the wise man is he who can best size up the situation, can
best get at all the facts. But even he must not interpose himself between us and
the raw experience. 37
Smith argued that deference to authority in undemocratic periods has been
supplanted by the will of the people to engage in inquiry together about what
is best. In this light, anyone can be a source of invaluable insight and what
matters is not the will of some unquestioned authority, but instead it is the
test of ideas for addressing real problems. Experience and experiments,
guided by intelligence, yield results in dealing with difficult situations, and
those results are authoritative in the modern democratic world, not unquestioned authorities.
Given the need for intelligence and the potential of everyone to contribute
to a better understanding of public problems, Smith highlighted the vital need
for an educated populace, especially one that allows each person to pursue
his or her interests and goals in life. He explains the value of such diversity
and freedom of inquiry as a matter of democratic intelligence and leadership,
echoing Dewey’s lessons on these subjects. 38 He wrote that democratic society emphasizes
such education as will fit every man to get at the facts that lure him most . . .
And since democracy as a way of life does, and as a form of government ought
to, aim at the greatest common good through the development of each individual to his highest, it must be judged not by its ability to produce a few “master
leaders,” in deference to whom human nature abdicates its highest prerogatives, but by its ability to make every citizen a creative leader in some enter-
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prise, however small, and at the same time a contented but critical follower of
superior insight in other fields, however extended. 39
Smith captured a second lesson important for democratic leadership, which is
the abandonment of the caste system that we find in Plato’s political thought.
He then ended with a third one, which we must draw out from his points
about leadership and deference.
Insofar as an individual becomes an expert at the task which lures him or
her, the price of such a focus must therefore be to trust and defer to other
people about matters over which he or she is not an expert. The master
carpenter defers to his or her doctor, for instance, trusting the doctor’s insights about healthy living. The trust inherent in a society that fosters diverse
forms of expertise and leadership is vital for the task of achieving social
unity. For, without trust, people’s leadership will not be followed. This is one
of the reasons politicians so often try to label each other as liars and as
inconsistent. 40 This will come up again as I turn to Plato and then to Dewey.
For Plato, unity is achieved through a “noble lie,” or as Smith would characterize it, through coercion. Smith argued that unity requires belief in the “end
[goal] of man” 41 of which he was skeptical. There surely are beliefs about
mankind’s purpose, but Smith argued that it is equally reasonable to think
that there is no particular purpose for mankind, save that which human beings create for themselves.
Ultimately, to achieve unity of belief about humankind’s purpose appears
impossible, Smith thought, without coercion. Thus, any unity to be achieved
will have to come about instead only as “a highly desirable by-product to
emerge from the coalescence of interests, if deeper knowledge can show that
they converge.” 42 This leads Smith back, ultimately, to knowledge as the key
to democratic leadership, since unity will depend upon knowledge about
people’s common interests. Each of these lessons from Smith will come up
again as I examine Plato’s ideas and then Dewey’s contributions for democratic leadership. For now, however, it is important to note that Smith left out
the leadership virtue of courage, which Plato had noted as necessary for the
ideal city. Beyond this virtue, Smith touched at least on the others that I will
address and is therefore among the richest resources and inspirations for my
project. Also, Smith characterized democratic leadership without defining it.
While my definitions are intended only to be starting points, such efforts can
be and often are useful.
The next study closest to my purposes is Kenneth Ruscio’s The Leadership Dilemma in Modern Democracy. Ruscio explains the problem of democratic leadership as a necessary inequality of power between leaders and their
followers, an inequality that democracy rejects. 43 He argues that public reason and trust are two vital elements of democratic leadership and are at the
same time key challenges to achieve. The central challenge which Rusico
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addresses, therefore, is the problem of unity, for which he sees helpful insights in scholars and public figures like John Locke and James Madison. At
bottom, Ruscio believes in the potential for democratic leadership and suggests that to think about leadership today requires an understanding of democracy. Thus, the field of political leadership ought to return to the study of
political philosophy, he argues. I agree entirely with Ruscio on these points,
and I aim to follow Smith in returning all the way to Plato in the effort
Ruscio suggests.
A number of other scholars have touched on or addressed democratic
leadership in various ways. Some excellent examples are J. Thomas Wren,
John Gastil, Joanne Ciulla, Terry Price, Joseph Nye, Nathan Harter, and
Jonathan Kuyper. 44 While these scholars have rich contributions to make on
particular issues for democratic leaders to consider, my goal is to start at the
beginning, to offer a theory of democratic leadership constructed through a
modern update to leadership drawn from Plato’s rich categories of political
and leadership virtues.
When I first became curious about democratic leadership, I encountered
two essays that surprised me and motivated me to look deeper. They were an
article by Kathryn Riley and one by Robert J. Starratt. Both offer insights
about leadership for the democratic context on which I will draw in later
chapters. For now, though, a quick look at their ultimate questions and challenges for democratic leadership will explain my motivations for this project.
Kathryn Riley’s “‘Democratic Leadership’—A Contradiction in Terms?”
looks at some rich insights on democratic leadership drawn from Joseph
Murphy’s work on the same subject. 45 Ultimately, however, she argues that
there is a deep “inside-outside” problem for democratic leadership. For when
you work to foster progress from within organizations, such as schools or
businesses, progress can develop given the help of “insiders,” yet be ignored
or superseded by powerful “outsiders.” Riley’s example involves educational
leadership cases, where successes at the school level are frustrated, ignored,
or overturned by disconnected or disaffected legislators who never even enter
the schools, yet make policy for them. Riley concludes, therefore, that “The
pursuit of democratic leadership is a vital goal [but how] achievable it is
remains to be seen.” 46
While I appreciate and understand the kind of frustration that Riley expresses, the problem at work here is not a failure of democratic leadership.
Rather, it is the fact that key persons involved in the enterprise at issue fail to
practice democratic leadership with all relevant parties. At the school level,
then, good leadership will always have to consider the pressures and authorities that can undermine local efforts. This means seeing those people
deemed to be “outsiders” as part of the community involved in the organization at issue. What Riley’s study does is to show how difficult it can be to
achieve unity with people who are far away or disconnected from one’s
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endeavors. This is a challenge, indeed, but one which itself can be approached with democratic values and methods for achieving democratic
ends.
Also doubtful of democratic leadership, Robert J. Starratt asks whether it
is “an oxymoron or an ironic possibility.” 47 At bottom, Starratt’s worry has
to do with power and the overconfidence of Enlightenment thinking. For
Starratt, the options for thinking about democratic leadership are that it is
impossible, and thus the terms are oxymoronic, or that it is an ironic possibility in the post-modern sense derived from Richard Rorty. It is worth noting
here again John Dewey’s influence, since Rorty was in his own way one of
the better known followers of Dewey’s philosophy, even if one with whom
Dewey might have had some significant disagreements. 48
Starratt’s postmodern approach to democratic leadership rightly attends to
problems of power and discrimination, but accepts a tenet of Rorty’s ironism
that I do not. In Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Rorty describes the
ironist as follows:
(1) She has radical and continuing doubts about the final vocabulary she currently uses, because she has been impressed by other vocabularies, vocabularies taken as final by people or books she has encountered; (2) she realizes that
argument phrased in her present vocabulary can neither underwrite nor dissolve these doubts; (3) insofar as she philosophizes about her situation, she
does not think that her vocabulary is closer to reality than others, that it is in
touch with a power not herself. 49
Ultimately, what Starratt is telling us about leadership is that it always needs
to be reconsidered. It must be revised as needed in future inquiry. So far, I
am in agreement, but I cannot accept the remaining tenet, namely the apparent call to deny that “vocabularies” can be tied to powers beyond oneself, to
authoritative facts of experience. This last element in Rorty’s ironism is the
place where postmodernism goes too far. For, Rorty and Starratt appear to be
saying that while standards cannot be set on unchanging foundations, as
Enlightenment thinkers wanted them to be, they also cannot distinguish one
“vocabulary,” or way of thinking, as more appropriate to reality than another.
When it comes to a child’s illness, for example, there can be some truth to the
value of lifting his or her spirits through stories or prayer. At the same time,
however, when a disease threatens his or her life, but could be eliminated
with the help of antibiotics or some clearly successful treatment, it would be
negligent to treat both “vocabularies,” one of poetry and the other of scientific medicine, as no better than the other for resolving a particular problem,
such as an illness. Children have died from such medical neglect, particularly
when science has been rejected in favor of faith healing alone. 50
The tradition of American philosophical pragmatism is clearly an important influence for Rorty and Starratt. At the same time, they do not follow a
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vital aspect of that tradition, a view which Larry Hickman has persuasively
argued with regard to Rorty, 51 namely that the abandonment of certainty is
not the rejection of standards or of objectivity. 52 As I argued in Rawls,
Dewey, and Constructivism, pragmatists think of objectivity as a matter of
process and continuing, transactional inquiry. 53 Objectivity refers to openness to questioning, an approach which leaves people free to object to the
truths presented, avoiding assumptions which preclude questioning and inquiry. In this sense, then, objectivity is neither a matter of permanent and
unchanging standards, nor a meaningless notion. Instead, it is a guiding norm
of public inquiry for which democracy is central, as a value in opening up
matters for all people to object to assumptions and to question leaders’ plans.
While pragmatists think that standards must always be malleable in the
light of future inquiry, they nevertheless find them important and meaningful
in distinguishing better or worse accounts of reality and of what is good.
Similarly, they appreciate correspondingly the vital need for the public to be
educated for the sake of good leadership, both in order to avoid being misled
by falsehoods or poor reasoning and to be better judges of experience. These
two needs are part of the justifications for public and liberal education. In
fact, in an essay titled “The Social Value of the College-Bred,” William
James makes this point explicitly. He writes,
The best claim we can make for the higher education, the best single phrase in
which we can tell what it ought to do for us, is then, what I said: it should
enable us to know a good man when we see him . . . “The people in their
wisdom”—this is the kind of wisdom most needed by the people. Democracy
is on its trial, and no one knows how it will stand the ordeal . . . In this very
simple way does the value of our educated class define itself. We more than
others should be able to divine the worthier and better leaders. 54
I take from James’s view here that there is something right in the knowledge
gained in higher education which teaches people how to come closer to the
truth in their judgments about virtue and thus good and bad leadership. The
“vocabulary” at work in different circumstances calling for leadership can
differ, but this does not mean that any point of view or standard is as helpful
or as good as any other.
In short, I would disagree with both options Starratt presents, that democracy might be an oxymoron or that it can only be an ironic possibility. I
believe that we can learn and teach others to recognize better leadership.
Theorizing about democratic leadership is not simply offering just another
vocabulary: it is an attempt, revisable as it may be, to better recognize and
foster good democratic leadership.
From Smith and Ruscio to Riley and Starratt, it seems clear that more
scholarship on democratic leadership is needed in the academic world. I hope
that the need will be filled with an eye also to the public’s demand for better
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leaders. With the public and academic needs for theorizing about leadership
in mind, the next step is to look directly at Plato’s strong challenge to democratic leadership, as well as to some hints from Dewey about its resolution.
IV. PHILOSOPHICAL RESOURCES FOR LEADERSHIP
FROM PLATO AND DEWEY
Many books could be written on the various contributions that historical
philosophers might have for thinking about leadership. Ruscio does a nice
job of thinking about modern political theory precisely for this purpose. 55 For
reasons that I have explained and will cover further here, my focus will be on
one of Plato’s most important texts, the Republic, and on John Dewey’s
democratic theory. This section will explain these choices directly and preview some of the deeper insights in the chapters to follow.
To those who have a background in the study of philosophy, the many
popular authors who write about leadership remind us of the Sophists in
Plato’s Dialogues. These were the people who claimed to have knowledge
that they would sell to generally wealthy and ambitious youths. When questioned by philosophers about what they knew, the alleged authorities were
shown to be ignorant in their very areas of expertise. Plato’s hero, Socrates,
demonstrated this time and again in his dialogues with his contemporaries. It
may be in part for reasons such as this that philosophers tend to shy away
from studying the subject of leadership today. At the same time, however,
Plato wrote a key and still influential treatise on how to prepare the next
generation for leadership, or as he would call it, guardianship of the polis, the
city-state. One of the topics in the Republic was the question of how the
leaders of the just society should be educated and prepared for the difficult
task of leading virtuously. Thus, while Plato may have disagreed with his
contemporaries and their claims to have knowledge, he nevertheless believed
that the sincere pursuit of knowledge could be directed to the task of educating people for the sake of fostering a just society.
Plato believed, in fact, that the best people to lead society were philosophers. He called for “philosopher-kings,” people focused on the good of the
public, not on their own personal benefit. Society should be directed by the
wise, he believed. He then differentiated classes of people who would work
in various kinds of labor, some physical and agrarian, and others knowledgeseeking. What is unsettling today is the idea of hard classifications. In the
democratic ethos, even the son of a modest Iowa farmer can excel in school,
attend Princeton University, and become a chief of surgery and university
professor in a top hospital and medical school, as my father did. Social
mobility is something people think of as especially democratic, and at least at
one time especially American. 56
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If we ensure that all can pursue education and if we dismiss the classifications of persons that we find in Plato, we still cannot deny the virtue of
wanting wise leadership. This is not to say that leading should be abstract and
scholarly to the point of being unable to act—an important qualification to
which I will return—but it is to say that wisdom among people in positions of
authority is something Plato was right to advocate. Thus, Plato’s call for
understanding and educating for leadership was vital for thinking about what
the idea of philosopher-kings might teach us for the democratic context. Plus,
it is all the more striking that philosophers today have so little to say about
leadership.
Given the importance of Plato’s contribution, scholars of leadership in
democratic cultures should consider how and why he thought that democratic
leadership is a contradiction. In the Republic, Plato first writes that where
democracy is established,
Then it looks as though this is the finest or most beautiful of the constitutions,
for, like a coat embroidered with every kind of ornament, this city, embroidered with every kind of character type, would seem to be the most beautiful.
And many people would probably judge it to be so, as women and children do
when they see something multicolored . . . So it looks as though anyone who
wants to put a city in order, as we were doing, should probably go to a
democracy, as to a supermarket of constitutions, pick out whatever pleases
him, and establish that. 57
Soon after, however, he explains both what is so pleasant in democracy and
also what is so pernicious. He writes,
And what about the city’s tolerance? Isn’t it so completely lacking in smallmindedness that it utterly despises the things we took so seriously when we
were founding our [ideal and just] city, namely, that unless someone had
transcendent natural gifts, he’d never become good unless he played the right
games and followed a fine way of life from early childhood? Isn’t it magnificent the way it tramples all this underfoot, by giving no thought to what
someone was doing before he entered public life and by honoring him if only
he tells them that he wishes the majority well? . . . Then these and others are
the characteristics of democracy. And it would seem to be a pleasant constitution, which lack rulers but not variety and which distributes a sort of equality
to both equals and unequals alike. 58
In short, Plato explains that in democracy, there are no rulers. It seems to be a
desirable arrangement because people can do as they wish. In his own view,
however, this means that people can participate in vice just as freely as they
can in virtue. This freedom will appear quite desirable to many people, yet
undesirable to those who care to cultivate virtue in society, to those who care
about creating a good society.
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The wholesale adoption of Plato’s ideas about leadership is certainly
problematic in the contemporary world. There have been many caste- and
class-based societies that have committed terrible wrongs, ignoring or dehumanizing various groups for the sake of the most powerful. In democratic
societies today, caste systems are widely believed to be objectionable, even if
class is still an accepted descriptive category. 59
There will be some Nietzschean individualists, who emphasize the crucial
value of geniuses, said to be of special value. 60 Even luminaries are rewarded
at times because of the value that they bring to the masses, however. Consider on this score that the passionate fans of Ayn Rand will explain the detriment they see for the common man to lose the benefits that the hero or
heroine offers to society. 61 The champion of individualism, therefore, often
defends her cause with appeals to the greater good of all, 62 not with appeals
to the inherent value of superior people.
While Plato’s sensibilities come across as harsh or too dismissive of
democracy at times, he nevertheless offers countless lessons for us to learn
still today. Philosophers can do a great service, therefore, in parsing out what
brilliant insights we ought to keep from philosophers like Plato and others,
and which outmoded beliefs we should leave behind.
To respond to Plato today requires some careful considerations about
democracy. John Dewey is a key resource for updating Plato’s ideas and for
defending democracy. In a passage that distills his contributions about democracy, Dewey wrote that
The key-note of democracy as a way of life may be expressed, it seems to me,
as the necessity for the participation of every mature human being in the
formation of the values that regulate the living of [people] together: —which is
necessary from the standpoint of both the general social welfare and the full
development of human beings as individuals. 63
Indirectly Dewey’s thinking about democracy responds to Plato. For a deep
challenge to democratic thinking, as we see in Plato’s critique, concerns the
development of citizens. Plato thought that only the guardians of the city
should be educated for leadership, for instance. He would admit that occasionally a person born to a farmer or soldier could be of a quality good
enough for guardianship, but his views on who should be educated suggest
little about how talent would be discovered and nurtured. 64
At bottom, Plato was concerned about the immense freedom at play in
democracy. When the people lead themselves, without real and strict guidance, he believed that they will not be the best and most virtuous that they
can be. They will be free to commit vice. They will disagree so strongly and
hatefully with one another that they will lack any moderation and will tear
apart the state. They will feel no unity with one another and will thus exhibit
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such instability that they will jump at the first great charismatic figure that
they find who can unite people and put down dissenters with undemocratic
violence and coercion. Plato explicitly warned of the dangers of democratic
disunity which lead the public to accept tyrants and thus to give up the
benefits of freedom that they had sought in democracy in the first place.
To avoid such dangers, Plato and Dewey both saw the immeasurable need
for education and the guidance of human development. People need to be
taught virtues, reasoning, and the methods of intelligent public inquiry. For
Dewey, education was for democratic ends and was consistent with wanting
opportunities to be open for all, drawing on all citizens’ intelligence for the
sake of the common good. Plato valued education and gave considerable
attention to it in the Republic. But he assumed there to be a dichotomy
between democracy and socialization. For Dewey, socialization is inevitable,
and thus will happen either accidentally or intelligently. 65 The big difference
between Dewey and Plato comes down to the fact that Dewey believed that
democracy could yield sufficiently shared goals and values to ground a system of public education available to all. Plato, by contrast, assumed that
democratic freedom’s permission of vice and variety would prevent common
values and collaboration.
Beyond Plato there are many other philosophers one could study on the
subject of leadership. His ideas about leadership as “guardianship,” however,
and his views about the four key virtues of the ideal society offer a starting
point for my thinking about leadership for democratic culture. Aside from
Plato, Aristotle was a significant contributor on the subject of leadership, as
were Confucius, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas
Hobbes, and many more. 66 My plan is to center here on Plato especially in
chapter 2, since he is one of the prime reasons people think democracy and
leadership are at odds with one another. Plus, Plato’s Republic exerted immeasurable influence on the history of Western thought and has not yet been
sufficiently mined for insights about leadership for democratic life. 67 My
subsequent focus on Dewey will show how one can draw from what is right
in Plato’s work, while updating the outmoded elements of his thought given
contemporary democratic values and contexts. In future work, I see a rich
opportunity for philosophers to make worthwhile contributions to the study
of leadership, drawing on other figures or on other texts in Plato’s corpus.
The key is to update classic ideas about the virtues with the values of modern
democracy.
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V. A GENERAL DEFINITION OF LEADERSHIP AND THE
DEMOCRATIC CONTEXT
In developing a theory of democratic leadership with inspiration from Plato’s
work, I set out first to build a general theory of leadership, which can then be
qualified as democratic. My hope is to avoid the authoritarian moves that
Plato makes. While my definitions here are initial and revisable, starting
points are necessary. As I begin, I want to clarify that my aim is to define
desirable leadership, rather than merely empirical senses of leadership, such
as in the phrase “in the lead,” which can refer to just “coming first.” Also, a
distinction derived from etymology should help explain one element of my
general theory of leadership.
A colleague pointed out to me the etymology of leadership that can be
helpful for noting differences between traditional and modern senses of leadership. The Latin and Greek terms rex and βασιλεύς, respectively, translate
today as “king” or “chief.” 68 These were people whose goal was to protect
against foreign attackers, to be chiefs in the effort of guardianship. In these
modern contexts, by contrast, “leader” implies a journey to take, such as
when one is led “by the hand.” 69 The difference here informs my sense that
leadership today is more guidance than guardianship, even if in examples
that involve military protection, medical care, or the supervision of children,
guardianship is still an appropriate term. 70
My definition is derived especially from Plato’s understanding of the
virtues in the ideal city. Those key virtues are: wisdom, courage, moderation
(alternatively understood as unity or harmony), and justice. I combine the
key virtues that Plato highlights regarding the ideal city in the Republic in
order to present a general definition of leadership. On my view, desirable
leadership in general is the application of wisdom and justice with courage
and moderation to the guidance of human conduct.
When I presented the definition here to various scholars along the way in
developing this book, one colleague chided me playfully but seriously, noting that this definition would not fit on a bumper sticker. He was right. 71 In
response, I developed a shorter version, summarizing three of these four
virtues in a word, judicious, set against the remaining virtue, courage. The
short version, accordingly, is as follows: Good leadership is judicious yet
courageous guidance.
My extended explanation for each of the components of this definition
will come in chapter 2. For now, though, a starting point is needed. Plus, it is
worth noting that the situations calling for leadership are crucially important
to consider. So a general definition should only be seen as a helpful tool to be
explained, expanded, or modified in ways that relevant contexts demand.
One place people sometimes think that leadership is unnecessary or undesirable is in very private matters. Although Dewey was right in thinking that
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there is no hard line between what is public and what is private, there are
extreme ends of the spectrum. In some contexts, public intrusion in the
private lives of people goes too far. For example, which specific movie I care
to watch in the privacy of my own home on a given weekend night is not
something to be decided by my community, even if my community sets some
limits on what is available. 72
The differences between people are part of what make communities richer, wiser, and more adaptable. In short, not every situation or context calls for
public leadership nor for democratic governance, even if democratic values
can be at work in private lives. Where it is desirable to guide human conduct,
however, that guidance should be as wise as it can be. It should also be
undertaken both with virtuous goals and by moral means. Next, individuals
must take responsibility and embody the courage necessary to take charge
and act even when it would be so much easier and less threatening not to do
so. Courage, or spirit, is vital to ensuring that citizens act when they should.
Finally, without general moderation in one’s actions and beliefs, unity is
impossible to achieve with others. Moderation is vital for building and maintaining a community and thus for participating in its leadership.
Now that I have presented a general definition of leadership, I will introduce briefly what I take to be its democratic form, focusing on the desirable
and political meaning of democratic leadership. As I will explain further in
chapter 4, I define democratic leadership according to norms which mirror
Plato’s virtues, adapting them for the democratic age. Democratic leadership
is a social process in which individuals: (1) courageously and experimentally
engage public problems and social action (courage), (2) construct, reconstruct, and debate them together in collective inquiry (the pursuit of wisdom,
intelligence), while (3) aiming at the good of a majority of citizens (unity and
moderation), and (4) respecting norms of open, reasonable, and fair decision
making and civic participation (justice).
Once again, the charge that I should offer briefer statements of my long
definitions is both warranted and motivating. Therefore, I will sum up these
four points, calling good democratic leadership: respectful experimental inquiry for the common good.
In this brief definition, “respectful” is meant to attach to the democratic
value of fairness and openness for all to democratic justice; “experimental” is
a qualifier that calls for courageous engagement in the face of new challenges and pursuits; “inquiry” is the process of intelligent action, guidance,
and wisdom—which when engaged in respectfully will acknowledge and
value the many sources of democratic insight; and what is “common” is that
which unifies and requires moderation to find overlapping interests and values.
It is my intention to leave the reader wanting more explanation here, and I
have no illusion that readers will be satisfied with this very brief set of
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definitions. As I have said, greater detail about my justifications regarding
Plato are in chapter 2, and about democracy and Dewey’s help updating Plato
in chapters 3 and 4. Before concluding this chapter, what remains to be
presented here is an unequivocal statement of the motivations for abandoning
what is outdated in Plato and for valuing the crucial norms of democracy.
VI. CONCLUSION: ON DEMOCRACY AND
CRITICISMS OF PLATO
Given these initial definitions of leadership, it is essential to appreciate the
meaning of democracy in the face of the challenge from elites like Plato. We
must also note how sharp a critique has already been leveled against Plato’s
ideas, especially by Karl Popper.
A general statement about democracy is worth highlighting, though the
meaning of the term is complex and varied in its uses. Dewey offered some
answers to Plato’s challenges, such as when the American philosopher admits that
The submerged mass may not be very wise. But there is one thing they are
wiser about than anybody else can be, and that is where the shoe pinches, the
troubles they suffer from.
The foundation of democracy is faith in the capacities of human nature;
faith in human intelligence, and in the power of pooled and cooperative experience. It is not belief that these things are complete but that if given a show they
will grow and be able to generate progressively the knowledge and wisdom
needed to guide collective action. Every autocratic and authoritarian scheme of
social action rests on a belief that the needed intelligence is confined to a
superior few who because of inherent natural gifts are endowed with the ability and the right to control the conduct of others; laying down principles and
rules and directing the ways in which they are carried out. It would be foolish
to deny that much can be said for this point of view. It is that which controlled
human relations in social groups for much the greater part of human history.
The democratic faith has emerged very, very recently in the history of mankind. 73
One might reasonably wonder why it is that democracy developed only very
recently, or at least why we should not prefer to preserve the hard distinctions
between people in the way that Plato proposed. 74 To answer, Dewey adds
that
The very fact of natural and psychological inequality is all the more reason for
establishment by law of equality of opportunity, since otherwise the former
becomes a means of oppression of the less gifted . . . [and the] democratic faith
in equality is the faith that each individual shall have the chance and opportunity to contribute whatever he is capable of contributing, and that the value of
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his contribution be decided by its place and function in the organized total of
similar contributions: —not on the basis of prior status of any kind whatever. 75
Here Dewey differs from Plato, especially from the Republic’s, myth of the
metals. That myth differentiates between people made of iron and bronze,
silver, and gold. For Plato, leaders should come from the golden category. 76
Democratic thinkers generally cringe at Plato’s separation of kinds of
people as being of greater or lesser value. 77 At the same time, American
states like Mississippi have a history of valuing people differently on the
basis of race. In a history of Mississippi, James Silver echoed Popper’s
themes in the title of his book on the state, Mississippi: The Closed Society. 78
In his own day, Plato had not witnessed chattel slavery or the extermination
of masses of people. 79 Whether he intended it or not, Plato’s categories and
ways of thinking about the qualities of character have been taken up time and
again in efforts to oppress groups of people.
Few scholars have demonstrated as clearly as Karl Popper has just how
troubling Plato’s ideas were regarding justice as a matter of maintaining the
right caste system. In his classic critique of Plato, The Open Society and Its
Enemies, 80 Popper explains that Plato commits “totalitarianism and racialism,” and that his
treatment of happiness is exactly analogous to his treatment of justice; and
especially, that it is based upon the same belief that society is “by nature”
divided into classes and castes. True happiness, Plato insists, is achieved only
by justice, i.e. by keeping one’s place. The ruler must find happiness in ruling,
the warrior in warring; and, we may infer, the slave in slaving . . . Plato says
frequently that what he is aiming at is neither the happiness of individuals nor
that of any particular class in the state, but only the happiness of the whole,
and this, he argues, is nothing but the outcome of that rule of justice which I
have shown to be totalitarian in character. That only this justice can lead to any
true happiness is one of the main theses of the Republic. 81
Although Western philosophy is incalculably indebted to Plato’s brilliance,
he is also a key inspiration for the subjugation of people deemed inferior to
more powerful classes.
Totalitarian and evil practices have made use of such norms, as when
Hitler relabeled the Jews of Europe or when slave traders and then owners
took the already troubling practice of slavery to incredible new moral depths
in the form of chattel slavery in the United States and elsewhere. Such
practices were in part justified by beliefs rooted in Plato’s sense of justice, as
we see here.
Popper presents one of the most incisive critiques of Plato’s totalitarianism. At the same time, he cautions democratic citizens, insisting that
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The question of the intellectual and moral standard of [a state’s] citizens is to a
large degree a personal problem . . . It is quite wrong to blame democracy for
the political shortcomings of a democratic state. We should rather blame ourselves, that is to say, the citizens of the democratic state. 82
One key lesson which we can draw from Popper is that in a democratic state,
citizens bare far greater responsibility for the virtues or vices of their own
society than do people in states ruled through coercion. 83
Modern democratic theorists dismiss Plato’s totalitarian ideas, but the fact
that people bear different abilities and talents is crucial for thinking about
society and democratic life. John Dewey saw that there is an uneven but
natural distribution of talents, for instance. This fact is consistent with providing maximal equality of opportunity for people to realize their potential,
to offer contributions to society, and to pursue happiness. We elect our representatives and wish to put in office the best and brightest persons we can find
for the relevant purposes for which they are the best suited. This does not
discount the many things that the community has to offer in terms of democratic insight, nor does it negate the value of citizens who lack great fortune
in natural endowments. There will always be those who doubt the contributions of the masses of people. It is clear, however, that even young children
can ask simple yet crucial questions, such as why there is a ramp into one
federal building and not another. 84 Observations need not be complex in
order to point out needed changes. Anyone can exercise invaluable leadership.
Democratic contexts and values call for great divergences from some of
Plato’s ideas, yet other key insights are worth preserving. So, in chapter 2
which follows immediately here, I begin with an examination of Plato’s
Republic to explain the four virtues of the city. Then, in chapters 3 and 4, I
address democratic leadership in greater detail, making use of Dewey’s helpful ways of reconstructing those concepts through which Plato’s elitist classifications erred. The goal throughout this project is to develop a theory of
desirable democratic leadership, one that is viable and valuable to scholars
and to the wider public as well. The democratic leadership I have in mind is
radical. It moves beyond initial efforts to instill democratic values into old
models of leadership as a special set of people. Instead, I argue that democratic leadership is best understood as a process, one that can be informed by
classic virtues updated for the modern, democratic era.
NOTES
1. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, edited by D. R.
Griffin and D. W. Sherburne (New York: The Free Press, 1978), 39.
2. David Fott, John Dewey: America’s Philosopher of Democracy (Lanham, MD: Rowman
and Littlefield Publishers, 1998).
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3. John Dewey, “From Absolutism to Experimentalism,” The Collected Works of John
Dewey, The Later Works, Volume 5, 1929–1930 (Carbondale IL: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1988), 155.
4. Danielle S. Allen, Why Plato Wrote (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell Publishers, 2010).
Allen sees in the question about “why Plato wrote,” a valuable insight for understanding his
political and practical motivations. For, if Plato had simply enjoyed thinking about ideas, he
could have simply done as his teacher did, talked about them without preserving them or
sharing them in written form.
5. Kenneth P. Ruscio, The Leadership Dilemma in Modern Democracy (Northampton,
MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2004), x.
6. Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume 1: The Spell of Plato (London:
Routledge, 1945).
7. Ibid., 191. Scholars will appreciate a qualification of what Popper argued here. He
admitted that “Socrates was not a leader of Athenian democracy, like Pericles, or a theorist of
the open society, like Protagoras. He was, rather, a critic of Athens and of her democratic
institutions, and in this he may have borne a superficial resemblance to some of the leaders of
the reaction against the open society. But there is no need for a man who criticizes democracy
and democratic institutions to be their enemy, although both the democrats he criticizes, and the
totalitarians who hope to profit from any disunion in the democratic camp, are likely to brand
him as such. There is a fundamental difference between a democratic and a totalitarian criticism of democracy. Socrates’ criticism was a democratic one, and indeed of the kind that is the
very life of democracy” (189).
8. Ibid., 169.
9. Ibid., 195.
10. Ibid., 194.
11. Of course, Popper notes that Plato does this through the voice of Socrates in the dialogue, which Plato “had no difficulty in succeeding [to do], for Socrates was dead” (194).
12. Plato, Republic, 227–228, or 557c–557e.
13. John Dewey, “Democracy and Educational Administration,” in The Collected Works of
John Dewey: The Later Works, Volume 11, edited by Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale, IL:
Southern Illinois University Press, 1991), 217–218, shorthand: LW.11.217–218.
14. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, 121.
15. See “Confidence in Leadership Survey, Sep, 2008,” Retrieved Feb-8-2012 from the
iPOLL Databank, The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut.
For a more recent example of concern over leadership, consider that in 2010, in a survey by the
Civil Society Institute, 75 percent of Americans said that the country’s political leaders are
weak in the area of “advancing policies that create jobs.” Civil Society Institute, “2010 Election
Survey: Clean Energy,” Oct, 2010. Retrieved Feb-8-2012 from the iPOLL Databank, The
Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut. I am indebted to Joseph
Nye for pointing out the “Confidence in Leadership” survey in his The Powers to Lead. For a
discussion of the causes of distrust of leaders internationally, see Joseph S. Nye, Philip Zelikow, and David King, eds., Why People Don’t Trust Government (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1997).
16. Thomas Vernor Smith puts it this way, referring back to William James’s views on the
subject. See T.V. Smith, “Democratic Leadership,” The Scientific Monthly 21, Issue 6 (December 1925): 613–628, 615.
17. Again, see the Roper Center’s “Confidence in Leadership Survey, Sep, 2008.”
18. Fortunately, that small sample has been of very good quality. I am thinking of works
written by Thomas Vernor Smith, Terry Price, Joanne Ciulla, and their colleagues at the Jepson
School of Leadership Studies. Ken Ruscio’s book is also excellent and, as it happens, he served
as Dean of the Jepson School for a period before he moved on to lead Washington and Lee
University. While we are fortunate to have some great scholars working on philosophy and
leadership, it is truly remarkable how few around the country and the world address the subject.
19. Gerald Gaus, “Should Philosophers ‘Apply’ Ethics? By ‘applying ethics,’ do philosophers actually succeed in corrupting philosophy?” Think, (Spring 2005), 63–67. I argued
against Gaus’s piece in Eric Thomas Weber, “On Applying Ethics: Who’s Afraid of Plato’s
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Cave?” Contemporary Pragmatism 7, Issue 2 (December 2010): 91–103. That essay was later
adapted and republished in Eric Thomas Weber, Morality, Leadership, and Public Policy: On
Experimentalism in Ethics (London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011).
20. Dan Berrett, “Philosophers Put Their Minds to Expanding Their Role in Public Affairs,”
The Chronicle of Higher Education 58, Issue 17 (December 11, 2011): A16–17.
21. Countless examples could work here. For now, see Brendan Greeley, “Bernanke to
Economists: More Philosophy, Please,” BusinessWeek, August 6, 2012, URL:
www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-06/bernanke-to-economists-more-philosphy-please.
22. John Dewey, “Democracy Is Radical,” in The Collected Works of John Dewey, Later
Works, Volume 11, edited by Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1987), 296–299. First published in 1937.
23. Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, “Democracy Corps/Campaign for America’s Future Poll, Nov, 2008.” Retrieved Feb-22-2012 from the iPOLL Databank, The Roper Center for
Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut.
24. Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t
(New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2001), 22.
25. In a recent example, Ashley Parker of the New York Times reported that former Governor Mitt Romney claims that his “past as co-founder of Bain Capital, a private equity firm, gives
him the business credentials that he says are needed to steer a troubled economy.” After all,
business leaders have a keen sense of where the pressures are on businesses like theirs. At the
same time, a patient affected by a doctor’s decisions does not thereby have the best understanding of medicine and health. He or she does know something important, however. These points
will come up again as I examine Dewey’s views on the values of democratic public inquiry.
See Ashley Parker, “‘Corporations Are People,’ Romney Tells Iowa Hecklers Angry Over His
Tax Policy,” The New York Times (August 12, 2011), A16.
26. He admits that the overused business mindset can wreak havoc in arenas that are not
profit-centered, one central claim in his book Good to Great in the Social Sectors. Many if not
most businesses involve organizations with significant hierarchical structures. The division of
labor, for instance, generally includes divisions of hierarchy, between the workers on the floor,
managers, bureaucrats, CEOs, and etcetera. Legislative committees, on the other hand, are
often nonhierarchical systems, save that there are committee chairs to ensure that meetings
flow smoothly. Jim Collins, Good to Great in the Social Sectors: Why Business Thinking is Not
the Answer (New York: Harper Collins, 2005).
27. See the Civil Society Institute’s “2010 Election: Clean Energy and Climate Issues Survey, October 2010,” Retrieved Feb-22-2012 from the iPOLL Databank, The Roper Center for
Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut.
28. Alana Horowitz, “Congress Approval Rating Lower Than Porn, Polygamy, BP Oil Spill,
‘U.S. Going Communist’,” Huffington Post, November 17, 2011, URL:
www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/16/n_1098497.html.
29. Bob Schieffer, “Congress’ Approval Rating: How Low Can It Go?” Face the Nation,
November 20, 2011, URL: www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57328351/.
30. To demonstrate my debt to Plato regarding this view, here is a passage to which I will
return in chapter 2. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates says that “Until philosophers rule as kings or
those who are now called kings and leading men genuinely and adequately philosophize, that
is, until political power and philosophy entirely coincide, while the many natures who at
present pursue either one exclusively are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities will have no
rest from evils. . . , nor, I think, will the human race” (Book V, 474d–e).
31. See “Confidence in Leadership Survey, Sep, 2008,” Retrieved Feb-8-2012 from the
iPOLL Databank, The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut.
For a more recent example of concern over leadership, consider that in 2010, in a survey by the
Civil Society Institute, 75 percent of Americans said that the country’s political leaders are
weak in the area of “advancing policies that create jobs.” Civil Society Institute, “2010 Election
Survey: Clean Energy,” Oct, 2010. Retrieved Feb-8-2012 from the iPOLL Databank, The
Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut. I am indebted to Joseph
Nye for pointing out this survey in his The Powers to Lead. For a discussion of the causes of
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distrust of leaders internationally, see Joseph S. Nye, Philip Zelikow, and David King, eds.,
Why People Don’t Trust Government (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997).
32. John Kane and Haig Patapan, “The Neglected Problem of Democratic Leadership,”
Public Leadership: Perspectives and Practices (Canberra, Australia: Australian National University Press, 2008).
33. Ibid., 26. Of course, others have noted the need for a definition of leadership as well,
such as Joseph C. Rost, Leadership for the Twenty-First Century (Westport, CT: Praeger
Publishers, 1993).
34. Upon completing the present book, I received my copy of Kane and Patapan’s recent
work on democratic leadership. Their project richly explores the limits that democracy imposes
on public officials, and also considers a tension for democratic leadership related to the one I
explore with Plato’s help. Kane and Patapan argue that democratic leaders must navigate
between idealism and cynicism among the people they serve. This tension is necessary for
democratic governance, they argue, as are the checks on public figures’ power, a point that I
draw also in the present book from Karl Popper’s work. In brief, as I see it, their volume
addresses concerns that still remain in the first democratic move to incorporate democratic
values into thinking about people who are in positions of authority. My democratic turn is more
radical, understanding democratic leadership as a process, not as a matter of particular concern
especially to public officials. Process, not person, is the focus of my theory, hence my definition of leadership as judicious yet courageous guidance. See John Kane and Haig Patapan, The
Democratic Leader (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
35. Thomas Vernor Smith, “Democratic Leadership,” The Scientific Monthly 21, Issue 6
(December 1925): 613–628.
36. In a 1903 letter, William James summed up his impression of the school of thought that
John Dewey pioneered at the University of Chicago. James wrote, “Chicago University has
during the past six months given birth to the fruit of its ten years of gestation under John
Dewey. The result is wonderful—a real School, and real Thought. Important thought too! Did
you ever hear of such a City or such a University? Here we have thought, but no school. At
Yale a school but no thought. Chicago has both.” Ignas K. Skruplekis and Elizabeth M.
Berkeley, eds. The Correspondence of William James, Volume 10, 1902–1905 (Charlottesville:
University Press of Virginia, 2002), 324.
37. Smith, “Democratic Leadership,” 622.
38. While Smith did not mention Dewey by name in this piece, he exemplified Deweyan
lessons over and over, and referenced William James explicitly, who was one of Dewey’s
contemporaries and distant colleagues in pragmatism. Ibid., 615.
39. Ibid., 622–623.
40. Cal Thomas and Bob Beckel, “Lies, Lies, Lies: Politicians Wonder Why Americans Are
Cynical and Don’t Trust Their Government,” The USA Today, June 3, 2010, A11.
41. Ibid., 626.
42. Ibid., 627.
43. Ruscio, The Leadership Dilemma in Modern Democracy, 4.
44. See J. Thomas Wren, Inventing Leadership: The Challenge of Democracy (Cheltenham,
UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007); John Gastil, “A Definition and Illustration of Democratic
Leadership,” Human Relations 47, Issue 8 (1994): 953–975; Joanne Ciulla, ed. Ethics: The
Heart of Leadership (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2004); Terry L. Price, Understanding
Ethical Failures in Leadership (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Joseph Nye,
The Powers to Lead (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008); and Jonathan Kuyper, “Deliberative Democracy and the Neglected Dimension of Leadership,” Journal of Public Deliberation 8, Issue 1 (2012): 1–32.
45. Kathryn Riley, “‘Democratic Leadership’—A Contradiction in Terms?” Leadership and
Policy in Schools 2 (2003): 125-40, and Joseph Murphy, “Reculturing the Profession of Educational Leadership: New Blueprints,” Educational Administration Quarterly, 38 (2002):
176–191.
46. Riley, 138.
47. Robert J. Starratt, “Democratic Leadership in Late Modernity: An Oxymoron or Ironic
Possibility?” International Journal of Leadership in Education 4 (2001): 333–52. The paper
26
Chapter 1
republished as Robert J. Starratt, “Democratic Leadership Theory in Late Modernity: An Oxymoron or Ironic Possibility,” in The Ethical Dimensions of School Leadership, edited by Paul
T. Begley and Olof Johansson (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers,
2003), 13–31.
48. This an understanding of which I have been strongly convinced by Larry A. Hickman’s
Philosophical Tools for Technological Culture: Putting Pragmatism to Work (Bloomington,
IN: Indiana University Press, 2001).
49. Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1989), 73.
50. Seth M. Asser and Rita Swan, “Child Fatalities from Religion-Motivated Medical Neglect,” Pediatrics 101, Issue 4 (1998): 625–629.
51. Larry A. Hickman, Philosophical Tools for Technological Culture: Putting Pragmatism
to Work (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001) and Pragmatism as Post-Postmodernism (New York: Fordham University Press, 2007).
52. See also Hilary Putnam, Ethics without Ontology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2005).
53. Eric Thomas Weber, Rawls, Dewey, and Constructivism (London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2010). See especially chapter 5.
54. Of course, James here retains the traditional understanding of leaders as special people.
The important point I draw on, however, is that liberal arts education is important for leadership, whether for persons in positions of authority or for everyday citizens. William James,
“The Social Value of the College-Bred,” in The Works of William James: Essays, Comments,
and Reviews (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 106–112, with the passages
on 109–110.
55. Ruscio, The Leadership Dilemma in Modern Democracy.
56. Fareed Zakaria, “Broken Bootstraps,” The Washington Post, November 10, 2011, A25.
The same article was published on the newspaper’s Web site under the title I prefer, “The
Downward
Path
of
Upward
Mobility,”
URL:
www.washingtonpost.com/gIQAegpS6M_story.html. Zakaria clarifies that upward social mobility is not something just of
interest for liberals and Democrats. As an example, he writes, “Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R)
accurately noted that ‘upward mobility from the bottom is the crux of the American promise,’”
but “growing evidence shows pretty conclusively that social mobility has stalled in this country.”
57. Plato, Republic, 227–228, or 557c–557e.
58. Ibid., 228, or 558b–d. Emphasis added.
59. To be sure, there are those who believe in castes or classes as somehow real categories
that should be used to differentially value human life and potential. To call such views democratic however, would be a mistake.
60. In the 2012 political climate, the heroes elevated to a crucial class to prioritize and
reward, are the “job creators.” Of course, debate rages on who they are. See Mark Trumbull,
“Who Creates Jobs? How Economists See the Obama-Romney Debate,” The Christian Science
Monitor, August 2, 2012, URL: www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2012/0802/Whocreates-jobs-How-economists-see-the-Obama-Romney-debate.
61. I published an op-ed on the odd incongruity of Ayn Rand as a heroine for politically
conservative people in the United States, where I made some of these points at greater length.
See Eric Thomas Weber, “Rand’s Appeal Curious,” The Clarion Ledger (Jackson, MS), July
24, 2011, 1–2 C.
62. I am thinking here especially of Atlas Shrugged, in which the consequence of “mooching” uncontrollably off the geniuses of society is that they will leave the common persons
behind to suffer the frustrations of each other’s lack of ability, will, or intelligence. The guiding
story is that even trains will not run on time or at all without the linchpin that is Dagny Taggart,
a key heroine. Thus, if humanity wishes to avoid chaos and to have anything function properly,
we must recognize the crucial value of Rand’s heroes and not feel entitled to the benefits of
their labors but instead must pay their prices even if they create monopolies. Ultimately, Rand
in that book was critical of the breakup of monopolies, which she showed artfully to be at times
simply the result of unique talent succeeding enormously at its task. It is worth noting that one
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27
need not be liberal or a democrat to be critical of Rand. Famous conservative author and
commentator William F. Buckley, Jr. admitted that “I had to flog myself” to get through
reading Atlas Shrugged. His relationship with Rand was strained significantly after his decision
to publish an absolutely scathing review of the book, titled “Big Sister is Watching You,” by
Whittaker Chambers in the National Review. Chambers’ review was not unique in its scathing
criticism. Despite the enormous commercial success of the book, Terry Teachout explained in a
1982 issue of National Review that “it’s a preposterous book . . . the reviewers demolished
it . . . [and] virtually every reputable conservative from Russell Kirk to Frank Meyer rushed to
repudiate it. Indeed, there aren’t very many bad things to be said about Atlas Shrugged that
aren’t true” (566). See Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (New York: Penguin Books, 1957); Roger
Ebert, “William F. Buckley Was Not a Fan of Ayn Rand,” Chicago Sun-Times, May 7, 2011,
URL: blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/politics/willam-f-buckley-was-not-an-ay-2.html; Whittaker
Chambers, “Big Sister is Watching You,” National Review 42, Issue 21 (1990): 120–122.
Chambers’ piece was first published in the National Review on December 28, 1957; and Terry
Teachout, “Farewell, Dagny Taggart,” National Review 34, Issue 9 (1982): 566–567.
63. John Dewey, “Democracy and Educational Administration,” in The Collected Works of
John Dewey: The Later Works, Volume 11, edited by Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale, IL:
Southern Illinois University Press, 1991), 217–218, shorthand: LW.11.217–218.
64. As it happens, I am the son of a clinically practicing university professor of surgery, who
himself was the son of an Iowa farmer. I appreciate the reasons why Plato’s overly quick
dismissal of the poor or lower classes is both jarring and foolish. It conflicts with democratic
ideals, which say that anyone can aspire to his or her own goals in life. It also is a mistake to
miss out on the great talent that can compete for the challenging careers that require a great deal
of education. Today farming is an immensely complex and scientific practice, in which foods
are often genetically engineered. It suffices to say that there are nevertheless significant divisions in opportunities for education and in levels of complexity of work, which was Plato’s
point. The points which we must call into question today are Plato’s acceptance of such
divisions and the different moral value he places on the more complex activities over the
simpler labors. Also, the fact that people have taken Plato’s ideas as justifications to privilege
certain classes or castes of people is both a misinterpretation of what Plato thought and a social
arrangement which does not take the fullest advantage of society’s talents as arrangements
which educate all for leadership and the pursuit of their own goals.
65. Larry Hickman, “Socialization, Social Efficiency, and Social Control,” in John Dewey
and Our Educational Prospect, edited by David T. Hansen (Albany, NY: State University of
New York Press, 2006), 67–79.
66. A few key texts from these scholars are: Confucius, The Analects (New York: Penguin
Books, 1979); Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters from a Stoic (New York: Penguin Classics,
1969); Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (New York: Penguin Classics, 2006); Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince (New York: Penguin Classics, 2011); and Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (New
York: Penguin Classics, 1982). Also, Ruscio The Leadership Dilemma in Modern Democracy
covers a number of further thinkers, including John Locke and James Madison, among others.
67. To be sure, Leo Strauss’s work on Plato’s politics has been influential, including on
particular American leaders. See Shadia B. Drury, Leo Strauss and the American Right (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999). The conflict that scholars see with this form of influence
concerns the fact that some political figures have drawn heavily on scholars like Strauss and his
interpretations of Plato, but without considering the need to update Plato’s ideas for the democratic context. Peter Singer provides an incisive critique of such developments in a book on the
George W. Bush Presidency. See Peter Singer, The President of Good and Evil: The Ethics of
George W. Bush (New York: Penguin Group, 2004), 220, where Singer writes that “followers
of the political philosopher Leo Strauss play an important role in the Bush administration.”
Strauss was among the modern Plato scholars who defended the idea of the noble lie, the myth
and fabrication told to the people for their benefit. See Leo Strauss, “On Plato’s Republic,” in
The City and Man (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1978).
68. Naoko Yamagata has explained that sometimes βασιλεύς is used interchangeably with
ἄναξ, though ἄναξ is on occasion to be differentiated and itself more squarely matches my
point in meaning here, about chiefs or lords who protect their followers. While I do not mean to
28
Chapter 1
depend heavily on etymology here, my point ultimately is that leaders, whether “kings,” “rulers,” or “lords,” in some or many Greek contexts were believed to have responsibilities to
protect their followers, to have their well-being in mind. See Naoko Yamagata, “ἄναξ and
βασιλεύς in Homer,” Classical Quarterly 47, Issue 1 (1997): 1–14.
69. For several insights and suggestions here, I am indebted to remarks from Dr. Tibor
Solymosi. Concerning the notion of a leader who leads people “by the hand,” see the Oxford
English Dictionary. “leader, n.1,” OED Online, September 2012, Oxford University Press. Last
accessed 10/05/12.
70. I am grateful especially to Ken Bickford for highlighting this point when I presented a
draft of this chapter at the gathering of the de Tocqueville Project at the University of New
Orleans in March of 2013. I would only add that in general, the democratic context for leadership is likely to agree more often with guidance than guarding, even if both behaviors among
leaders can be necessary and valuable.
71. I am grateful to Dr. Richard Barke of Georgia Tech’s School of Public Policy for this
amusing yet serious critique.
72. There are limits placed on films that were made in ways that have harmed or will harm
people. In particular, the striking cases involve things like child pornography. See Suzanne Ost,
“Children At Risk: Legal and Societal Perceptions of the Potential Threat that the Possession of
Child Pornography Poses to Society,” Journal of Law and Society 29, Number 3 (September
2002): 436–60. My ultimate point here is that while there are some limits in extreme cases
about what videos one can watch, within the enormous variety and vast breadth of available
things to watch, there are countless choices in which society does not and ought not interfere.
73. Dewey, “Democracy and Educational Administration,” LW.11.218–219.
74. Plato used the myth of metals, calling some people golden, others made of silver, and
still others bronze and iron. By this set of differences, Plato deemed some people best and
ideally suited for leadership. He generally believed that these traits are passed down in families
but admitted that occasionally the children of the lower classes could exhibit qualities of the
nobler ones. It is language like this that many today find offensive, especially in view of
extreme abuses of such ideas in the form of caste systems or slavery. See Plato’s Republic, p.
91, or 414a–415e. It is worth noting that in Plato’s myth, all people are said to have been
children of the earth, and the children of persons made of bronze can be golden. Thus, even if
metals are generally categorized in a clear fashion, the divisions are not permanent or unmixed
and those made of gold ought to be respectful of the potential of all people’s children and their
potential. Still, Plato was not democratic insofar as it is clear that it is those who are made of
gold who are of greatest importance to him. Today, people may still act this way, yet they are
deemed to be troublingly elitist. The modern world has the hindsight to instruct us against the
incredible, tragedies that have been caused by those who oppressed people on the basis of
assumptions about a class of people’s nature and worth.
75. Dewey, “Democracy and Educational Administration,” LW.11.220.
76. See Republic, Book III, 415a–b.
77. In caste systems, one can generally not leave the station into which he or she was born.
In the Republic, Plato admits that a person can occasionally be born with greater metals than his
or her parents were made of, though he believes this is unusual. Ultimately, though, Plato is not
proposing a pure caste system, given the possibility for rare social mobility, but his views are
not far from those which would support a caste system. To those who might not want to say that
Plato defends a caste system, I would point to Maurice Balme, “Attitudes to Work and Leisure
in Ancient Greece,” Greece and Rome 31, Issue 2 (October 1984): 140–152. I agree with
Balme, who argues that “Plato in the Republic has a rigid caste system in his ideal polis,” given
that he “permanently excludes from all part in government the demiourgoi (craftsmen) and
georgoi (farmers)” (131).
78. James W. Silver, Mississippi: The Closed Society (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and
World, and the University of Mississippi, 2012).
79. It is fair to note that there was certainly slavery in Plato’s day, and that “barbarians,”
who were non-Greeks, were regularly dehumanized. In short, I may be too generous to Plato
here, yet the grossness of modern slavery and the extermination efforts of a people in World
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War II have been said to have marked humanity. See Shlomit Kriger (ed.), Marking Humanity:
Stories, Poems, and Essays by Holocaust Survivors (Toronto: Soul Inscriptions Press, 2010).
80. Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume 1: The Spell of Plato (London:
Routledge, 1945).
81. Ibid., 169. Where Popper refers to Plato’s “insistence,” he cites the standard notations of
the Republic, specifically 419a, ff., 421b, 465c, ff. and 519e.
82. Ibid., 126–127.
83. Popper’s claims here resonate with later developments in the U.S. Civil Rights era. In
fact, Popper’s language of the “open society,” which Socrates seemed to advocate in contrast to
Plato’s “closed society,” foreshadows nicely some of the difficulties I will address when I come
to talk about Mississippi at the close of this book. In Mississippi’s troubled history, the state
was at one time called “the closed society.” See James W. Silver, Mississippi: The Closed
Society (Jackson, MS: The University of Mississippi Press, 2012). Silver’s book was first
published in 1964, while he was a professor at the University of Mississippi.
84. In Ann Arbor, Michigan, the Center for Independent Living regularly organizes the
Summer Youth Advocacy Program, about which their Web site explains that “Every summer,
the Ann Arbor CIL holds an eight-week long program to help young people put the Americans
with Disabilities Act (or, ‘ADA’) into action! Students learn about the ADA at the Ann Arbor
CIL and then go on field trips around the community to test how well area businesses and
facilities adhere to the law. Students assess the widths of doors, measure the angles of ramps,
and test a variety of other accessibility factors that affect people with disabilities. When students identify accessibility issues, they learn how to effectively share learned information with
business owners, managers, and legislators, and advocate for change . . . Our students have
evaluated facilities at the University of Michigan, Eastern Michigan University, Zingerman’s
Bakehouse Complex, the Ann Arbor District Library, and others.” See URL: www.
annarborcil.org/offices/youth/summeryouthadvocacy/, last accessed August 3, 2012. Beyond
this example, there are organizations highlighting and encouraging youth activism, such as the
Youth Activism Project, based in Kensington, MD, URL: www.youthactivismproject.org, last
accessed August 3, 2012.