Stephen B. Young, The Daily Record Newswire
A consensus is emerging that, while he is endowed with an alert and studious mind and can articulate his thoughts well, Barack Obama is not a leader. Chris Christie stooped low to call the president a “feckless weakling.”
Not everyone shows the disrespect of a Trump or a Christie toward the president, but some conventional wisdom is settling in that Barack Obama comes up short in giving people confidence in the future of the country. Why is that? It is him or is it us who may demand too much of him and other leaders like our governor and senators and mayors and university presidents?
To me, the reason why Obama in particular lacks the skill of leadership is at once simple and subtle. Both his strengths and shortcomings reflect what he learned at the new, “post-modern” Harvard Law School, where he excelled as a student.
And by the way, both Bill and Hillary Clinton used law school to start their careers on the road to power and money. Law schools are giving a new spin to the leadership styles of our elite.
In short, Harvard Law no longer teaches foundational skills for good leadership. Further, it now overly rewards a superficial intellectuality quite divorced from an appreciation of truth and virtue. Law schools now are more about “lawyering” the truth than coming to grips with its many, oftentimes harsh, realities.
I know this well as a former assistant dean at the Harvard Law School, one brought back specially by Dean Albert Sacks in 1978 to address the alienation and anomie of the students and to rebuild a robust community of future leaders for the country and the world. Sadly, I saw back then the replacement of the old verities of legal education with a new model based on critical studies and deconstruction of the Rule of Law. At the new Harvard Law School, the law became whatever you wanted it to be.
Once, the school attracted a faculty well qualified to shape student minds in practical wisdom about the higher fiduciary calling of legal institutions. Now, in sad contrast, it exists to preen candidates for our post-modern meritocracy housed in our elite, inter-breeding, professional bureaucracies of finance, government, business corporations, nonprofits, and academia.
Those who have done well at Harvard in recent decades have specialized in learning not the law, but what is called the theory and practice of discourse.
Discourse is a code word for the post-modern epistemology that there is really no such thing as substantial truth, only discourse about truth — your discourse, my discourse, his discourse, her discourse, ad infinitum.
In a cultural reality where there are few links to real reality, the work of the mind is no more than “conversation” — another code word for discourse. Conversations, then can be stupid or clever or somewhere in between. We are to judge them by our own discourse conventions.
Barack Obama’s “tell” that he is a product of this pliable culture of words and more words showed in his recent interview with Steve Kroft on “60 Minutes.” Asked if he would like a third term as president, Obama deftly replied yes and no. On the no side of the argument, he said that a new president is needed to have a new “conversation” with the American people, one more in tune with new times and circumstances.
That to me was a giveaway that he sees his leadership role as only one of taking part in a “conversation.” Speaking is thus in his mind his principal contribution to the country.
Second, in his book “The Audacity of Hope,” the president commented in passing that we carry on a discourse about the provisions of our federal Constitution. Thus, again, in his mind, as ratified by his teachers of Con Law at Harvard, there is little substance, little permanence, little to respect or to be guided by, in our Constitution. It is only words when words are not much more than toys to be played with.
The danger, of course, in believing too much that an admirable facility with words is sufficient for leadership lies in mistaking your words for the truth as seen or experienced by others. All they present is only a different discourse.
Discourse sensitivity and skills then actually cut you off from others, making it harder for you to work collegially with them but at the same time, easier for you to think you are better than they are. Your discourse takes pride of place over their discourse because it is yours and better fits your identity and needs for self-actualization. Discourse theory and practice promote narcissism over other traits of character like honesty and courage.
A few White House insiders (Robert Gates and Leon Pannetta) have now written about Obama’s tendency not to engage with those who don’t share his frames of reference. Republican leaders in the House and Senate have long complained about his aloofness from the legislative process.
Obamacare — the president’s signature accomplishment — was formulated and passed largely by congressional Democrats without much personal input from the president.
The president has also shown time and time again that he has little keenness to personally engage in the implementation of policy, in the annoying and stubborn struggle to get a bureaucracy to work. He speaks to the moment and that is supposed to be enough.
Another danger inherent in discourse theory and practice is the incentive to conclude that things are what you say they are. The words as you define them and use them take precedence over reality. So if the president insists that his polices are working vis-à-vis ISIS, in his mind that is the truth.
In this way, discourse theory and practice insidiously promotes self-absorption as they undermine the checks and balances real reality throws up day in and day out to keep us intellectually honest.
My favorite critique of discourse theory and practice is that of the Chinese Taoists, who asserted that “the Tao which has a name is not the real Tao.” In other words, if it is named, it has fallen into the realm of discourse which may not be that of reality.
There are many theories of leadership, but at the core of each, equally respected in culture after culture, is a demand that the leader be realistic and show mastery in getting things done. They demand from the one who would lead conviction that there is a real truth which gives us core values to stand on firmly.
Those abilities require more than a good intellect and a gift for using words well. They demand a mind that is rooted outside itself and a character that knows how to inspire others with personal grit and risk of self. Narcissists, therefore, rarely make good leaders.
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Stephen B. Young is executive director of the Caux Round Table, an international network advocating ethical principles for business and government.
