Statesmanship and Its Betrayal

 http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=1998&month=04

These are extracts from a lecture by Mark Helprin that is well worth reading.

 

“…we have only what we have. Which is a political class that in the main has abandoned the essential qualities of statesmanship, with the excuse that these are inappropriate to our age. They are wrong. Not only do they fail to honor the principles of statesmanship, they fail to recognize them, having failed to learn them, having failed to want to learn them.

In the main, they are in it for themselves. Were they not, they would have a higher rate of attrition, falling with the colors of what they believe rather than landing always on their feet—adroitly, but in dishonor. In light of their vows and responsibilities, this constitutes not merely a failure but a betrayal. And it is a betrayal not only of statesmanship and principle but of country and kin.”

“…America would not have come out of the Civil War as it did had it not been led by Lincoln and Lee. The battles raged for five years, but for a hundred years the country, both North and South, modeled itself on their character. They exemplified almost perfectly Churchill’s statement, “Public men charged with the conduct of the war should live in a continual stress of soul.”

This continual stress of soul is necessary as well in peacetime, because for every good deed in public life there is a counterbalance. Benefits are given only after taxes are taken. That is part of governance. The statesman, who represents the whole nation, sees in the equilibrium for which he strives a continual tension between victory and defeat. If he did not understand this, he would have no stress of soul, he would be merely happy—about money showered upon the orphan, taken from the widow. About children sent to day care, so that they may be long absent from their parents. About merciful parole of criminals, who kill again. Whereas a statesman knows continual stress of soul, a politician is happy, for he knows not what he does.”

“…It is difficult for individuals or nations to recognize that war and peace alternate. But they do. No matter how long peace may last, it will end in war. Though most people cannot believe at this moment that the United States of America will ever again fight for its survival, history guarantees that it will. And, when it does, most people will not know what to do. They will believe of war, as they did of peace, that it is everlasting.

 

The statesman, who is different from everyone else, will, in the midst of common despair, see the end of war, just as during the peace he was alive to the inevitability of war, and saw it coming in the far distance, as if it were a gray wave moving quietly across a dark sea.”

“…Would that we in America come once again to understand that statesmanship is not the appetite for power but—because things matter—a holy calling of self-abnegation and self-sacrifice. We have made it something else. Nonetheless, after and despite its betrayal, statesmanship remains the manifestation, in political terms, of beauty, and balance, and truth. It is the courage to tell the truth, and thus discern what is ahead. It is a mastery of the symmetry of forces, illuminated by the genius of speaking to the heart of things.”