Charles Arlinghaus: Leadership requires prudence, not extremism
BARRY GOLDWATER was wrong. Not about everything, but about one big thing. Extremism in the defense of liberty is in fact a vice and hurts the cause of freedom more than it helps. Barry Goldwater was right about so many things that it seems awkward to use him as a bad example, but this memorable phrase usefully points the successful leader in the opposite direction. Moderation and humility in your behavior and relations with others advances rather than precludes goals and achievement based on conviction and principle.
Barry Goldwater had become the godfather to the conservative movement in the 1960s with his clarifying polemic, “The Conscience of a Conservative.” This jewel contains the line which may have been written last week, “I think that the people’s uneasiness in the stifling omnipresence of government has turned into something approaching alarm.” Some things don’t change.
I am waiting for him to be right when he said, with more hope than prescience, “the turn will come when we entrust the conduct of our affairs to men who understand that their first duty as public officials is to divest themselves of the power they have been given.” Ah, if only Washington would adopt that as a unifying philosophy.
But what most remember Barry Goldwater for saying is one line of a speech accepting the Republican nomination for President in 1964. “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Toleration in the face of tyranny is no virtue.” He was just half right.
Toleration is only occasionally a virtue. We all agree that freedom does not demand the toleration of anything and everything and some things are beyond the pale. His pairing however offers too much misguided advice. Extreme rhetoric and behavior, however satisfying to the practitioner, is usually often imprudent, impractical, counter-productive, and clearly a vice.
What I want to recommend is related to behavior not principle. I don’t believe your principles and beliefs should be moderated or watered down. Too often people make the mistake of confusing prudence and civility for the abandonment of principle. On the contrary, prudential behavior is independent of principle. Civility and decorum can be practiced equally by the right, the left and the wishy-washy.
The politics of Twitter and the modern age is neither practical nor effective. To accomplish anything, a leader need separate the personal from the principle. Your political opponents are not your enemies. Rather they are people who choose a different path to achieve a result they think useful or even principled.
If a leader persists in making every discussion a pitched battle between armed camps of good and evil, he substitutes personal destruction for accomplishment and hyperbole for persuasion. I use Twitter and its cousins as an example of the invective that replaces principle.
Everyone must be suppressed or stopped. Everyone is lying. Everyone is either a Communist or a fascist. Political propaganda bears so little resemblance to truth that it adds to public cynicism. Communications professionals tweet snide comments that are useful only in their sophomoric circles. Political debate begins to resemble a more juvenile version of eighth grade.
Leadership takes two equally insipid forms. One path is to go forward saying nothing. Adopt a catch phrase or two and work it into as many sentences as possible so everyone listening can have a god laugh counting how many times you say innovate, huge, or reverse the polarity. Words lose all meaning with their continual meaningless utterance and begin to emphasize the lack of detail or plan. Just as well because your adviser thinks doing anything is dangerous.
The second path is to attack harshly. Everyone is your opponent and must be replaced or stopped. The other party’s ideas are all bad, just because. You become a strong and hated leader whose strength becomes a character flaw. That leads people who find you repulsive to hate a sensible policy that had the misfortune to be promulgated by someone annoying.
Both my examples are hyperbole, but leadership involves opposing ideas not people, advocating substance not catchphrases. True leadership is not wishy-washy but temperate in behavior, humble in the way it conducts itself, and deeply grounded in principle.
Extremism in the defense of liberty turns people away from liberty. Humility and temperance are persuasive ways to advocate strong principle.
Charlie Arlinghaus is president of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, a free market think tank based in Concord.
Barry Goldwater had become the godfather to the conservative movement in the 1960s with his clarifying polemic, “The Conscience of a Conservative.” This jewel contains the line which may have been written last week, “I think that the people’s uneasiness in the stifling omnipresence of government has turned into something approaching alarm.” Some things don’t change.
I am waiting for him to be right when he said, with more hope than prescience, “the turn will come when we entrust the conduct of our affairs to men who understand that their first duty as public officials is to divest themselves of the power they have been given.” Ah, if only Washington would adopt that as a unifying philosophy.
But what most remember Barry Goldwater for saying is one line of a speech accepting the Republican nomination for President in 1964. “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Toleration in the face of tyranny is no virtue.” He was just half right.
Toleration is only occasionally a virtue. We all agree that freedom does not demand the toleration of anything and everything and some things are beyond the pale. His pairing however offers too much misguided advice. Extreme rhetoric and behavior, however satisfying to the practitioner, is usually often imprudent, impractical, counter-productive, and clearly a vice.
What I want to recommend is related to behavior not principle. I don’t believe your principles and beliefs should be moderated or watered down. Too often people make the mistake of confusing prudence and civility for the abandonment of principle. On the contrary, prudential behavior is independent of principle. Civility and decorum can be practiced equally by the right, the left and the wishy-washy.
The politics of Twitter and the modern age is neither practical nor effective. To accomplish anything, a leader need separate the personal from the principle. Your political opponents are not your enemies. Rather they are people who choose a different path to achieve a result they think useful or even principled.
If a leader persists in making every discussion a pitched battle between armed camps of good and evil, he substitutes personal destruction for accomplishment and hyperbole for persuasion. I use Twitter and its cousins as an example of the invective that replaces principle.
Everyone must be suppressed or stopped. Everyone is lying. Everyone is either a Communist or a fascist. Political propaganda bears so little resemblance to truth that it adds to public cynicism. Communications professionals tweet snide comments that are useful only in their sophomoric circles. Political debate begins to resemble a more juvenile version of eighth grade.
Leadership takes two equally insipid forms. One path is to go forward saying nothing. Adopt a catch phrase or two and work it into as many sentences as possible so everyone listening can have a god laugh counting how many times you say innovate, huge, or reverse the polarity. Words lose all meaning with their continual meaningless utterance and begin to emphasize the lack of detail or plan. Just as well because your adviser thinks doing anything is dangerous.
The second path is to attack harshly. Everyone is your opponent and must be replaced or stopped. The other party’s ideas are all bad, just because. You become a strong and hated leader whose strength becomes a character flaw. That leads people who find you repulsive to hate a sensible policy that had the misfortune to be promulgated by someone annoying.
Both my examples are hyperbole, but leadership involves opposing ideas not people, advocating substance not catchphrases. True leadership is not wishy-washy but temperate in behavior, humble in the way it conducts itself, and deeply grounded in principle.
Extremism in the defense of liberty turns people away from liberty. Humility and temperance are persuasive ways to advocate strong principle.
Charlie Arlinghaus is president of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, a free market think tank based in Concord.
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Mark Hounsell said Wednesday, December 7, 2016 at 5:34 am
Very astute, well-written and spot on.One on you very best columns. I hope many across the political spectrum consider your words.
LEONARD CANNON said Wednesday, December 7, 2016 at 7:51 am
I think Charlie is showing his age a little. I'm no young pup but to write that Twitter is not politically "effective," is quite frankly, naive. He didn't mention the "ineffectiveness" of YouTube but he would have been naive and wrong about that also if he did. I don't have a Twitter account or a Facebook account and despise them both. However, to arrogantly dismiss them as "ineffective" is foolish. These aren't the good ol' days when journalists "reported" the news. You have to fight back any way you can or you get lost in the disingenuous goo being spilled by every biased news organization and spin-driven website. Trump is an unconventional candidate and President-elect in an evolving conventional time. Back when things were "civil", Charlie we didn't have major networks leaking debate questions to "their" candidate to rig elections. We didn't have "reporters" like John Harwood from NBC actually moderating a national debate and then go down on their knees with knee pads on constantly emailing inside-the-newsroom-info to the campaign chairman of "their" candidate, getting caught doing so, and then keeping their job! What should a "civil" Trump do? Say, "Awh, come on fellas. Let's be civil like the old days and stop that." PLEASE Charlie! I get that UL supported Christie and that never-had-a-chance Gary Johnson. They also bashed Trump at every chance which was just a bout every day. I'm OK with that. Opinions are opinions and each paper has the right to endorse anyone. But wake up. This ain't the good old days. Media has changed . And we better learn to work with it and openly oppose it when we need to. Trump figured that out. That's why he won. The losers still haven't figured it out.
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