The "Great Man" Theory of Everything

It wastes money when applied to baseball; it puts the country in danger when it explains Presidential elections.

Many of you have just signed up for these short essays.  Thank you.  I appreciate your willingness to add one or more emails to your inbox each week.  I write rather broadly about a lot of subjects and I’m sure you won’t find all of them of equal value.  (Reminding you of you many classes I taught?) As they say on the sport’s talk show Pardon the Interruption, “I’ll try to do better next time.” 

For today I want to start with baseball and end with a Presidential Election. 

Some of you may have been following the signings of baseball’s free agents.  A lot of hype.  And a lot of money.  I’m not much of a believer in the value of the superstar in baseball.  Nor, really, in life.  Maybe in a few sports.  Maybe in certain operas.  And while compositions have to be performed and plays dramatized by a cast, I will leave Sondheim and Shakespeare on the marque or on a Rushmore equivalent.  But for what is important in life, like baseball, I’m celebrating the team and warning against seeing the world as a battle ground of superstars.

To me, “Great Man” theories have always seemed troubling.  I’m sure it adds to revenue at famous battle sites when tourists buy coffee mugs with the great man’s face on the side. And perhaps children’s “hero stories” need a knight as well as a dragon, but, for my money, teams win baseball games---and a lot else.

Many teams that have top players, the same that are now getting millions of dollars in free agency, don’t win championships. Sometimes they come in last.  The processes that result in competitive success are complex.

I realize that elites need figureheads.  Throughout history the hero can also serve an after-role: the scapegoat.  Western history “titlts” toward pyramidal hierarchies.  We could have an interesting evening discussing why.  I suspect “hero centric analysis,” though bad history,  sells books and forms the plots of successful movies.   

And in the case of baseball, it makes for some pretty poor bets. 

As for politics, it really becomes dangerous.  There is not a “right” person to lead a nation.  Actually, a country is never, or rarely, led by one person, as many seem to think. 

I remember when I first started teaching in Africa.  I looked out the window and saw the Headmaster being chased around the building by his students.  I redoubled my effort to keep all eyes on the blackboard.  Afterwards I found David safe and well, and I asked about what I saw.  “The class was sleepy” he said, “and I led them around the building to wake them up.” 

You can’t tell most of the time who is leading or who is being chased and there are many other possibilities.  Yet we all have the “picture” in our heads of “the Great Leader” and draw our conclusions.  Often dangerous conclusions. 

Take the 2024 Presidential Election.  You hear it is about Trump or Biden, and that either one or the other will be a disaster.  Many anticipate a hero to emerge.  A stranger to ride into town and rescue the townspeople from what we see as impending doom.  Or maybe Trump is your hero, of even Biden.

I know it does little to change this narrative to point out that the Presidency is a relatively weak office.  No one has yet found any sure way around the legal (constitutional) constraints.  In this regard, histories of the Presidency are histories of largely failed efforts.  (For example, Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make.)

More important, though, is the fact that the Executive branch of the government is a very complex bureaucracy, and the Office of the President is an integrated “team.”  When you vote for “a President,” you vote for what you hope will be a team of experienced and competent men and women.  (It is possible that elected “leaders” may try to “go it alone” or greatly overestimate both their knowledge and ability and by-pass the talents of those they appoint and retain.)  Such an administration will be a disaster.  i.e. a failure. 

This election is not just about Trump and Biden.  It is about the nature of their future appointments and their ability to lead such a team. It is about whether you trust such a team to make safe and wise decisions and then implement them with skill. 

Back to baseball.  I once recruited someone who I felt was the best softball player in the area to play on my team for an important game.  He excelled, as usual. 

And we lost.