The Great Society

 

The day the greatness of a country is judged by the transient matter of who happens to in charge of its government will be a sad one for the world.

The capricious Fates may hand over a great country to administration by a lunatic, an incompetent, a hypocrite a fraud, a megalomaniac or a liar. A cult of personality may be built upon any of these shaky foundations, without elevating anything but the image of the leader in the eyes of the credulous.

We know, whenever we see a historically great country currently ruled by a grasping, mendacious inadequate, just which direction the appearance of greatness is flowing.

I find it preferable to remain within the parameters set by Plato. Anyone who would put himself forward for election is unworthy of being elected. The more a candidate desires election, the less suitable for office he is, until you reach someone who is so desperate for power that he should ideally be marooned on some uninhabited island where his arrogance can only damage himself.

Political leaders in general vary in talent on a scale ranging between slightly more intelligent than the desk at which they sit, to, at worst (as we used to say in Yorkshire), as bent as a nine bob note. (This in an era when the smallest currency note was ten shillings).

The quality of a country’s civilisation, society, openness to new thinking, preservation of civil and human rights without the need for compulsion or oppression, make a country great. Its achievements in arts, sciences, literature, philosophy, and the continuing quality of thought; its ability to educate without indoctrinating and disagree without enmity, make it great.

The greater a society is, the less it needs to tell all a sundry about its greatness.

A country cannot achieve greatness without agreement on, and commitment to, fundamental principles. You cannot achieve greatness by alienating a vast proportion of your domestic population. If you can only win an argument by force, suppressing all opposition, then you cannot win an argument.

Anyone who believes that the best way to establish the truth is to burn heretics is not great; he is a fool.