In Need of Great Americans
Ronald Reagan was recently named the “greatest president,” by 19% of Americans, in a February 2011 Gallup Poll. Abraham Lincoln was ranked second (14%), followed by Bill Clinton (13%), John Kennedy (11%) and George Washington (10%). In short, Washington and Lincoln gained a quarter of the “vote,” while three late twentieth century presidents got nearly twice that amount.
The poll did not define “great,” but the results raise a useful question: where do Americans turn for models of “greatness,” for public heroes? In a February 2009 Harris Poll, which asked people to name their heroes, Barack Obama topped the list, followed by Jesus Christ. Martin Luther King, Jr. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush rounded out the top five. George Washington was not in the top ten. Psychologists might point to the “recency” effect at work in both polls – we tend to name those most recently on our minds. Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton were recent presidents. Obama had just taken office and King’s national holiday had just been celebrated (not to deny the latter’s legitimate claim to greatness). When Harris asked the same question in 2001, John Wayne and Michael Jordan were on the list (but have now dropped out of the top twenty).
The “recency effect” helps explain how an actor, sports figure, impeached president, president who got us into a costly war for the wrong reason, and a president so new as to have no record at all made it onto these lists. The more intriguing question is what criteria Americans have for judging greatness. What constitutes an American hero anyway? Equally troubling may be the question of how much Americans recall about the people who have shaped the nation. A third question: do we confuse greatness with celebrity? Michael Jordan and John Wayne were celebrities. But is celebrity enough?
We need great Americans; we need heroes. All societies do. Without exemplars, it’s hard to teach the young to aspire to greatness. It’s hard to develop their guideposts for public service and sacrifice. It’s hard to judge potential leaders and avoid selecting media darlings instead of those with qualities of statesmanship and moral stature. It’s hard to have faith in America and its ideals – if no one ever seems to live up to them in real life.
Try this little test. Name two admirable traits and major accomplishments of the following: Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass and George C. Marshall. For most people, that’s a struggle. Our schools do not focus much on the character and heroic achievement of relatively “unknown” Americans. Yet these people dedicated much of their lives to giving America a modern financial system and manufacturing economy, the Constitution, the vote for women, the abolition of slavery, and the economic reconstruction of Europe after World War II. They also had the strength of character, commitment to American ideals, and dogged determination to ask Americans to honor their own values as a nation. They were not perfect people, but in their leadership of the nation, they each aimed for perfection.
We are a future-oriented people, and that’s a good thing. But without anchors in the past, it’s like we’re careening down the highway without ever looking in the rearview mirror. In our times, we seem so cynical about our leaders and our institutions. Moral exemplars, great Americans, can remind us of both who we have been and what we can still become. What people say about greatness in polls matters little. Who they carry in their minds – and why – matters a lot.
Establishing what it means to be a great American is a task for parents, schools, the media and leaders themselves. Parents need to exemplify the traits of character that make for greatness, and they need to hold up for their children models of greatness in American life. Schools need to devote more time to what it means to have character, honor, and passion for the public good. What it takes to lead an exemplary life is important content in addition to the skills needed to get a job. It’s good and important that Washington, Lincoln and King still make the list. But we do not serve our common interests well when we turn their birthdays into shopping events. How much better might our children be served if they remained in school on those three days in exciting, day-long programs that focused on who these people were, what made them great, and what the students themselves could contribute on their own path to becoming American heroes.
The media need to find and share American greatness. They spend too much time on covering those who have failed to offer an example of what the nation needs. Our leaders themselves ought also to teach us what it means to be great – by their actions. The tendency to use past and present popular political figures to cloak themselves with the mantle of great thoughts and deeds seldom produces great thoughts or deeds today.
In the eighteenth century, the classical education of the young included the stories in Plutarch’s Lives, the work of one of the fist chroniclers of the character and works of great men. American writer and poet Maya Angelou added an important corollary in saying “How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!” They both remind us that who we honor says a lot about who we are and who we want to become.
