It is a form of rhetoric American politics has abandoned, argues Titus Techera, in part because it seems undemocratic: "they exalt some men, usually fallen soldiers, above the rest of us — and, too, because they allow politicians to assume high authority, greater than the merely political, to speak to the nation about the nation as a whole."
Yet it is not necessarily anti-democratic to recognize that some men are better than others. The democratic aspect is reinforced when we realize that those better men are just as often found among the ordinary man of the countryside as among the rich, those thought well-born, or those thought well-educated. Indeed, in today's speech, President Trump does us the democratic service of being an elite-born, elite-educated, rich member of the politically empowered who is manifestly not the equals of the men his task is to praise. He may be a better President than he is often given credit for being, but he is nevertheless not the equal of the Boys of Point du Hoc.*
It is no insult to say so. Reagan didn't claim to be. Few men alive should dare, and of those who might, I can't think of any who would.
Noble speech is a form of honor, and honor is not improper for democracies. It is as essential to the success of our form of self-government as it is for any nobility, or for any form of human organization at all. The quality of democracy is that it sometimes finds honor where the well-born might not expect it. Democracy bestows honor on such heroes all the more capably when it puts their honors in mouths of duly elected, lesser men.
*(The NRO editors give "Point du Hoc" correctly the first time, but then several times as "Point de Hoc," which is another illustration that the elite are not always better than the ordinary man. We all make mistakes like this.)
7 comments:
Four men were awarded the Medal of Honor for actions during D-Day:
Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
First Lieutenant Jimmie W. Monteith, Jr.
Technician Fifth Class John J. Pinder
Private Carlton W. Barrett
Courage knows no rank.
I'm baffled by the idea that we're not to exalt some men over others. Where does such an idea even come from? From discomfort over the idea of hereditary privilege?
That's some bio on the highest-ranking of the Medal recipients from D-Day, by the way. The man was approaching 60 and died of a heart attack about a month after he stormed Utah beach with his troops. His father was President Teddy Roosevelt. He'd already served in WWI (where he lost a brother) as well as in a wide variety of high positions in corporate and public life. Papa Roosevelt seems to have known how to raise sons.
https://www.sar.org/theodore-roosevelt-jr
I'm baffled by the idea that we're not to exalt some men over others. Where does such an idea even come from?
Maybe it's intersectional. A wish to self-identify as what/whomever suits one and a wish to steal valor for oneself. Thus: I identify as a Medal of Honor winner. And so can you, so I'm not exalting myself by exalting myself.
It's also a way for a gamma male to feel less self-disrespect.
Eric Hines
Not many years ago, I noticed it became common for people (mostly women) to say, after a minor confession, '...don't judge me!' The idea being that they wanted to continue to be accepted as equal in spite of admitting a minor fault. Which, frankly, is fair enough; we all have minor faults, and I'm prepared to let most slide, especially if they are confessed and therefore admitted and recognized.
But there are few like this today, and even those with a claim to it would probably turn aside from making it in awe of the scale of their sacrifice. The old Scots toast: "Wha's like us? Dam' few, and they a'deid.'
Great post. There is nothing undemocratic about publicly recognizing talent and achievement. To do so was an indispensable part of Jefferson’s notion of an aristocracy of merit.
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