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Notes on the topic of President Lincoln William Jamison How Smart Was Lincoln?
1st presentation 1/21/10 at 4PM in room ADM 148.
Lincoln
In the movie “Being There” Peter Sellers plays the role of Chauncy Gardiner (really Chance the gardener). Chance is unique as he seems to have spent all his years in the old man’s house with only the radio and then TV as his education. When the old man dies and Chance is evicted from the house he can only view the world he enters as something like TV. As he says while in a car for the first time, riding next to Shirley McLain (Eve) he makes the comment while looking out the car window that “This is just like Television only you can see much farther.” As the plot unfolds Chance is progressively viewed by those around him as a highly educated multi-lingual successful businessman (though his house has been closed by the lawyers!) and by the end of the movie it seems he is on the way to becoming the next US presidential candidate by the board members who seem to be the ones who chose the current president. We know that Chance is not capable of being president and as the audience know what almost all the characters in the movie do not – that they have been overestimating Chance’s abilities and knowledge. During each conversation we understand the simple, child like nature of Chance’s answers and statements, but also understand why everyone interprets him differently – as making deep social commentary. Chance appears to be on track to wining the highest office in the land because he succeeds in satisfying the emotional mood of almost everyone – especially through TV. I am following the movie in this summary rather than the book by Jerzy Kosinski because in the book Chance thinks. In the movie we can’t really know what Chance is thinking, if he is at all. The movie leaves us in a quandary wondering if Chance is the way he is because of his unique history, or if he was mentally challenged from the start and the “old man” who was most likely his father kept him from the world for his own safety, or whatever might be “wrong” with Chance – there is even another possibility as at the very last scene Chance walks on water not knowing he should sink, but this ties in to a wonderful question for me: how intelligent does a president of the US have to be to successfully lead the country?
I want to ask this question today especially since we have new books that bring up this very issue. In “The Political Brain” Weston argues that it is the ability to communicate emotionally with the electorate that gets a candidate elected, not the ability to rationally explain the data or issues. Through several examples from debates, such as those between John Kerry and George W. Bush, or between Al Gore and George W. Bush, the “winner” of the debates is, according to his thesis, the one who communicated to the audience that they were on the same emotional side of the issues as the audience. The candidate that spoke as if they were a college professor explaining something difficult to a relatively uneducated public turned the audience off, and so was rejected by them in the election. This book was written prior to the last presidential election where President Obama certainly came across in many ways as the professorial type, but succeeded as well in communicating that he was coming from the same emotional side of the issues to a majority of the electorate. But examples of individuals with great educations are also given in the book, in that Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton both succeeded in doing that, and arguably so did George W. Bush who famously never was out-Texaned ever again after his first lost campaign.
So to be clear, my concern here is more specific, how important is a good education for someone to become a successful president? Would a better education likely result in a better president? The president I would like to examine in some detail is Abraham Lincoln.
Granted the first president of the US that is considered to have had comparatively little education is Andrew Jackson - the “American Lion”. He is the president that on his second run for the office beat John Quincy Adams who was the incumbent and the last
Defend Lincoln as a great leader despite his lack of formal education. This should include his lack of contemporary understanding by comparing things he said to contemporaries like Mill or Kierkegaard, or Nietzsche. Then go on to show how such a sophisticate would not have been elected in the US at that time – by thinking about some of the other candidates like Seward. (This can be pulled from “The Team of Rivals”) In this light, Lincoln was a man of his times and place. We may in retrospect argue that he was not nearly educated enough for the task before him, not nearly as prepared to understand what he was doing in light of even his own contemporaries across the sea and even some like James and Royce. It also seems clear that his cabinet, while including some that had much better educations, were in no better shape to lead the people as well as Lincoln did, or respond more adequately to the challenges they faced collectively as the leadership of the Union.
Can a conclusion from this be that successful leadership, perhaps especially in the face of adversity, need not be culled from among the most intellectual the country has to offer?
A further question, given the answer to this first question being answered in the affirmative, should be when would intellectual leadership be a better choice and why would it be?
Can Moore’s paradox be used in this? “It is raining outside but I do not believe that it is raining.” Could something like that have been an issue for Lincoln? The South will succeed but they will not?
Books he read included:
According to Binns in Abraham Lincoln (p. 18) The Life of Henry Clay Weems’ Washington Aesop’s Fables p. 14 The Bible Robinson Crusoe Pilgrim’s Progress
Lincoln may not have had a formal education but had learned to think of “public sentiment” as necessary for anything to succeed. So manipulating that sentiment was certainly part of his success. What is the key to such success? What is the key to a successful theory? The Political Brain by Drew Westen – quote from Adlai Stevenson. Also, thesis statement: what motivates the political brain is emotion, teams, not rationality.
justice kept recognizing in Mr Stanton the qualities which the War Office required invited him into his Cabinet as cordially as if they had been old friends From that time through dark and evil days through nights of solicitude and fearful responsibility they together carried the burden of war until and largely owing to their joint labors the rebellion was crushed and the republic saved In the dark night of another day of evil the most sorrowful heart by the bedside of the murdered President throbbed in the bosom of his Secretary of War and his voice it was which spoke his grandest eulogy in the words There lies the most perfect ruler of men the world has ever seen
See chapter 3 Life in New Salem in Abraham Lincoln for a great description of his intellectual environment – perhaps quote this as a great summary of the point of the discussion. See chapter 13 in same? For his moral intellectual point of view. See p 125 for Yale professor using his speech for the class as a model of cogency and finish. The Works of Ab Lincoln vol 1 See p 214 of Lincoln and Seward for interesting comparison – praise of Lincoln’s intellect See p 350 where Grant says that after meeting leaders of all other nations Lincoln was the greatest intellect he met – in Abraham Lincoln – a history (vol 10) See in Eulogy p 19 on Euclid
Intelligence: The Bell Curve Lincoln
In the movie “Being There” Peter Sellers plays the role of Chauncy Gardiner (really Chance the gardener). Chance is unique as he seems to have spent all his years in the old man’s house with only the radio and then TV as his education. When the old man dies and Chance is evicted from the house he can only view the world he enters as something like TV. As he says while in a car for the first time, riding next to Shirley McLain (Eve) he makes the comment while looking out the car window that “This is just like Television only you can see much farther.” As the plot unfolds Chance is progressively viewed by those around him as a highly educated multi-lingual successful businessman (though his house has been closed by the lawyers!) and by the end of the movie it seems he is on the way to becoming the next US presidential candidate by the board members who seem to be the ones who chose the current president. We know that Chance is not capable of being president and as the audience know what almost all the characters in the movie do not – that they have been overestimating Chance’s abilities and knowledge. During each conversation we understand the simple, child like nature of Chance’s answers and statements, but also understand why everyone interprets him differently – as making deep social commentary. Chance appears to be on track to wining the highest office in the land because he succeeds in satisfying the emotional mood of almost everyone – especially through TV. I am following the movie in this summary rather than the book by Jerzy Kosinski because in the book Chance thinks. In the movie we can’t really know what Chance is thinking, if he is at all. The movie leaves us in a quandary wondering if Chance is the way he is because of his unique history, or if he was mentally challenged from the start and the “old man” who was most likely his father kept him from the world for his own safety, or whatever might be “wrong” with Chance – there is even another possibility as at the very last scene Chance walks on water not knowing he should sink, but this ties in to a wonderful question for me: how intelligent does a president of the US have to be to successfully lead the country?
I want to ask this question today especially since we have new books that bring up this very issue. In “The Political Brain” Weston argues that it is the ability to communicate emotionally with the electorate that gets a candidate elected, not the ability to rationally explain the data or issues. Through several examples from debates, such as those between John Kerry and George W. Bush, or between Al Gore and George W. Bush, the “winner” of the debates is, according to his thesis, the one who communicated to the audience that they were on the same emotional side of the issues as the audience. The candidate that spoke as if they were a college professor explaining something difficult to a relatively uneducated public turned the audience off, and so was rejected by them in the election. This book was written prior to the last presidential election where President Obama certainly came across in many ways as the professorial type, but succeeded as well in communicating that he was coming from the same emotional side of the issues to a majority of the electorate. But examples of individuals with great educations are also given in the book, in that Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton both succeeded in doing that, and arguably so did George W. Bush who famously never was out-Texaned ever again after his first lost campaign.
So to be clear, my concern here is more specific, how important is a good education for someone to become a successful president? Would a better education likely result in a better president? The president I would like to examine in some detail is Abraham Lincoln.
Granted the first president of the US that is considered to have had comparatively little education is Andrew Jackson - the “American Lion”. He is the president that on his second run for the office beat John Quincy Adams who was the incumbent and the last
Defend Lincoln as a great leader despite his lack of formal education. This should include his lack of contemporary understanding by comparing things he said to contemporaries like Mill or Kierkegaard, or Nietzsche. Then go on to show how such a sophisticate would not have been elected in the US at that time – by thinking about some of the other candidates like Seward. (This can be pulled from “The Team of Rivals”) In this light, Lincoln was a man of his times and place. We may in retrospect argue that he was not nearly educated enough for the task before him, not nearly as prepared to understand what he was doing in light of even his own contemporaries across the sea and even some like James and Royce. It also seems clear that his cabinet, while including some that had much better educations, were in no better shape to lead the people as well as Lincoln did, or respond more adequately to the challenges they faced collectively as the leadership of the Union.
Can a conclusion from this be that successful leadership, perhaps especially in the face of adversity, need not be culled from among the most intellectual the country has to offer?
A further question, given the answer to this first question being answered in the affirmative, should be when would intellectual leadership be a better choice and why would it be?
Can Moore’s paradox be used in this? “It is raining outside but I do not believe that it is raining.” Could something like that have been an issue for Lincoln? The South will succeed but they will not?
Books he read included:
According to Binns in Abraham Lincoln (p. 18) The Life of Henry Clay Weems’ Washington Aesop’s Fables p. 14 The Bible Robinson Crusoe Pilgrim’s Progress
Lincoln may not have had a formal education but had learned to think of “public sentiment” as necessary for anything to succeed. So manipulating that sentiment was certainly part of his success. What is the key to such success? What is the key to a successful theory? The Political Brain by Drew Westen – quote from Adlai Stevenson. Also, thesis statement: what motivates the political brain is emotion, teams, not rationality.
justice kept recognizing in Mr Stanton the qualities which the War Office required invited him into his Cabinet as cordially as if they had been old friends From that time through dark and evil days through nights of solicitude and fearful responsibility they together carried the burden of war until and largely owing to their joint labors the rebellion was crushed and the republic saved In the dark night of another day of evil the most sorrowful heart by the bedside of the murdered President throbbed in the bosom of his Secretary of War and his voice it was which spoke his grandest eulogy in the words There lies the most perfect ruler of men the world has ever seen
From “The Biology of Belief” note that when protection is important growth decreases including brain growth – so that when we are under fear or stress we are not as smart. The higher processes of the brain have to yield to responses to the dangers. This is why some students can’t remember things at the test that they knew before hand. Under stress of war how did Lincoln react? We know he was depressed.
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