It's sort of like Noblesse Oblige
Long live our narrow-minded obsession with choosing bad leaders
Hi all, Jean-Luc here.
Before we dive into this week’s essay, I’d like to take a moment to welcome the new subscribers to The Portmanteau and offer a brief look at the year ahead. With the growing readership, it’s worth just revisiting what this is and what it aims to do.
The Portmanteau is a once-a-week essay on a topic typically related to social commentary and the arts. If you’re one of those new subscribers, you might take a moment to check out some of the best essays from the archives including Carrie Radford’s humorous look at being a new mother, Molly Hacket’s essay on opera and object permanence, or my own recent essay in April on friendship.
This year we’ll have a number of guest essayists with a variety of perspectives, opinions, and backgrounds. Look out for regular guest content starting in July. Closer to home, next week’s essay hopes to introduce you to Ai Wei Wei (if you don’t know him) and offer a look at how art gives perspective and voice to the human experience. It’s an oft asked question on this site, and one we’ll keep asking, “What, exactly, is art?”
Enjoy today’s read, an argument in favor of…well, you can read for yourself.
I’m glad you’re here,
Jean-Luc
I’m in London at the Colbert on Sloane Square eating breakfast and drinking coffee and watching people and cars pass in the light, typical London rain. A group of Italians sits to my right. Like me, they slipped into a table under the burgundy awning to avoid the rain. They have long since finished their cappuccinos and now are waiting for the rain to abate somewhat so they can continue with their day.
A black Mercedes pulls up to the curb in front of the door. A driver steps out, retrieves an umbrella, and then comes to the entrance to escort a well-dressed, elderly lady to the car. She waves away the umbrella, but he insists, and she relents. They walk the ten feet from the entrance to the car. He opens the door, stashes the umbrella in the trunk, and then off they go.
And that’s when I realize that I’m in favor of an aristocracy.
Many will ask, “Why are you in favor of an aristocracy?” Apart from being undemocratic, it also smacks of something disgustingly un-American, in theory. But the better question is not one of why but one of what. In other words, “What kind of aristocracy are you in favor of?”
I was in Hyde Park on May 6 among a group of friends watching the coronation of King Charles III on a screen. To get the best seats on the parade route people had camped out in tents up to three days before. Estimates for what this coronation will cost the British taxpayer range between $50 million and $125 million. Opinions vary between the abolitionists—those who want to see the monarchy destroyed—and monarchists—those who believe it still has lasting value for the United Kingdom. Others in the United Kingdom have specific qualms with Charles himself, who has a hackneyed past riddled with marital scandal. Much of the British population doesn’t trust him. Yet he represents the core of the British aristocracy, a ruling class that has been in place for thousands of years.
It’s tempting to only go back a century or so, limiting the comparison to Elizabeth and her immediate forbearers, in order to justify a point that royal aristocrats can be both good and useful, but one need not wind the clock too much further to find plenty of examples of where Britain’s ruling aristocracy failed. And it isn’t just limited to their royals. Read any Jane Austen novel or watch Downton Abbey to understand how often the hereditary aristocracy of England fails to live up to its prestigious position.
In the United States we don’t have a hereditary aristocracy. Instead we have aristocracies of pedigree and wealth. Our first six presidents were elected from just two states, Virginia and Massachusetts, and were all of a similar class. Today, you don’t have to be born in the right state or to the right land-owning family as long as you attend the right institutions or have a significant net worth. But how often have these moneyed and pedigreed aristocracies failed us?
Look no further than the imbroglio of Donald Trump’s legal quagmire. And it’s not just limited to dear old Donald. Last week reporting emerged that nine members of the Biden family received payments from foreign nationals during his terms as vice president and president. They’ve grown insanely rich. It has the odious smell of corruption.
It’s not limited to our political leaders, either.
I recently binged the entire podcast series The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, an in-depth look at the rise and collapse of a mega-church in Seattle that began in 1996. By the time it imploded in 2014, it had more than 15,000 members and a dozen different campuses and an income nearly $20 million. In the aftermath of its collapse, the church filed for bankruptcy, leaving hundreds of people unemployed. Additionally, there was evidence of significant spiritual manipulation and emotional abuse that many of the church’s members experienced over the course of its nearly 20 year tenure.
Oh yeah, when the church collapsed, the head pastor received a severance package of one year’s salary, or $650,000, and skipped out of town without so much as an apology.
A question the podcast asks over and over again is how we keep getting duped by the phenomenon of celebrity, ignoring serious character flaws in leaders and promoting them to positions of power, then dealing with the fallout of their flagrant narcissism and disregard for people. Why do we elevate leaders who lack character? Why does our society promote these men and women into positions of influence and authority? Why are we surprised when they disappoint us?
Stop for a moment and think about a person you know who has character. Someone who exemplifies integrity, honesty, courage, humility, and magnanimity. (Yes, you do need to know them, so Mother Teresa doesn’t count. And no, they don’t have to be perfect.) Now, what if that person was your local church leader? Your PTA leader? Your local mayor? Your governor? Why can’t they be?
Why do we keep choosing Donald Trump or Joe Biden or Mark Driscoll instead of these people in our minds who exemplify virtue? “Don’t let your gifts take you where your character can’t keep you” is a phrase I heard quite a bit growing up. G.K. Chesterton wonders in an essay why we avoid the task of making good men successful and instead seek the harder task of making successful men good—a recipe for disaster and disappointment. Yes, it’s more complicated than that, but it’s a question worth considering.
So, what kind of aristocracy do I believe in? I think the hereditary aristocracies have failed us, giving us the likes of Charles III; the moneyed aristocracies have failed us, giving us the Robber Barons of our past and the playboys of our present; the pedigreed aristocracies have failed us, giving us the litany of Ivy League educated elites with the moral backbone of a spaghetti noodle.
So, I’m in favor of an aristocracy of character, which it turns out isn’t a new idea at all. The word aristocracy means “rule by the best” and was originally coined to denote a government led by its best citizens. Clearly that rarely happens in reality, and I’m under no illusion that it ever completely will.
But on this point we are our own worst enemies.
When we are disappointed by our leaders we change our definition of “the best”. So what once was hereditary is now based on wealth or pedigree or institutional association. And we’re seeing how these have failed us, so our new obsession is with knowledge, technical skill, and specialization. We are in danger of equating “the smartest” with “the best”. But the cracks are already beginning to show in that logic, too. Look no further than Sam Bankman-Fried and the demise of FTX. Or Elon Musk. It turns out that being a “nerd” doesn’t equate to the character we need in good leaders.
Whether we admit it or not, we’re all in favor of an aristocracy. The question is just what kind.
Have some thoughts? Leave a comment.
The Portmanteau—essays and social commentary for everyone, even level-headed, curious, thoughtful people.
A well-wondered essay worth exploring more deeply. Related topics might be leaders who led well, key character traits of good leaders, key character traits for ourselves and our friends. How do we create a path to a character-driven "aristocracy."