David Brooks, Senior Editor of the Weekly Standard, has written a perceptive, but (to me) troubling book about the state of the upper middle class American ethos. Titled Bobos In Paradise, it posits a new ruling class, the bohemian bourgeoisie (“bobo”), that has been created by bridging the opposing cultural value systems. Briefly, Bobos are hard working, affluent, professional, non-partisan, non-ideological, moderately religious or “spiritual”, and basically content, i.e., the information age elite. They have absorbed both sides of the culture war that has been raging for at least thirty years, and they almost never get outraged. Their leaders are not co0nviction driven; they “triangulate” and seek out the various “third way” strategies beyond left and right, such as “don’t ask, don’t tell”. Confrontation is not their game, neither are bold policy initiatives, and they certainly do not want to make harsh moral judgments. So if the bourgeoisie and bohemians have merged, who got the better of the deal? Brooks thinks the bourgeoisie did, because their commercial values triumphed over the bohemian complaints about capitalistic corruption of culture. In the process, however, the bourgeoisie has adopted much of the cultural value system and world view of the bohemian which essentially grew out of the European Romanticism of the late 18th and early 19th centuries: the virtues hedonism, self-expression, creativity, and imagination. Establishment Bobos rarely present a well grounded and consistent set of ideas and public policy initiatives based on strong conviction or worldview. My observation of many Bobos in positions of opinion leadership, particularly in the business community, is that they could be categorized as the “don’t get me hurt” coalition. In other words, the avoidance of any high profile confrontation on controversial issues, particularly of the cultural variety, is a high priority for them. While pointing out some perils, Brooks seems to take a balanced view of the world of the Bobos. I’m not so sanguine and, in fact, I deplore much of what I see in Boboland. Recently, The Houston Chronicle ran a syndicated article by Judy Hevrdejs entitled “Average America”, which reported on the growing American tendency to exalt the mundane in life. Of course, the word mundane itself is defined as “from the secular world, distinguished from the heavenly or spiritual.” The TV show Seinfeld is described as the ultimate show about the mundane. Today, it is trendy and virtuous to be mundane. Am I mistaken in feeling that this is a Machiavellian trait? Is this what America is about? Have we lost the sense of exceptionalism that separated America, with its high moral ideals and unique historical mission, from other cultures? Have we become so detached and cynical that public endeavor in pursuit of the big questions is reduced to risk-free pragmatism? With encroaching Boboism, I fear the answers to these questions, as I am reminded of W. B. Yeats’ famous lines, “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

Recently, in thumbing through some old files, I rediscovered copies of a speech and an article I authored on two occasions in the mid to late 1980’s. I was honored to be invited to deliver the commencement address to the Spring 1985 graduating class at Stephen F. Austin State University and, in 1989, I was asked to write an article for The Texas Lyceum Journal. The subject of both was Leadership and I was struck by how relevant they still are to my thinking, so I decided to share critical passages from them with Pilgrim readers, as follows:

With the possible exception of love, leadership is probably the most discussed and least understood topic in our society. There are very few definitive studies on it that are in popular use, yet leadership is a term that we use almost indiscriminately. In his 1978 book on leadership, James Macgregor Burns defines two basic types:

1. Transactional leadership – this is by far the most common type. It is one in Which the leader and the follower exchange one thing for another – jobs for votes, for example – and is basically the traditional power relationship that often connotes dominion or control wielded by a holder of power. It is a bargaining, manipulative kind of leadership very often based on trade-offs among competing interests.
2. Transformational leadership – this is more complex because it employs vision and a sense for the needs, motives and anxieties of those who would be followers, and it provides a means for converting followers into leaders. It is based on mutual understanding between leader and follower, mutual trust, a sense for responsiveness to societal changes, and a commitment to the building of consensus on the critical issues.

It is the subtle differences in these two types that are so important today and that have produced a desperate need for this rarest type of leadership, the transformational variety. Never in our history has there been such a void and a need and, conversely, such an opportunity. In the past 25 years, we have seen an amazing erosion of true transformational leadership. Our relationship with leadership seems to have been replaced by the cult of personalities, and our leaders by celebrities. We seem to have a devotion to trivia about people centered on the private lives of our leaders—we seem to know a lot about our leaders, but place on them far too little demand for true leadership. And most of the time, we get just what we want, or should expect.

Opportunities for leadership skills abound; we have a proven need for it. So what do we do?

This, I believe, is step one: we must develop an understanding of the basic differences in the types of leadership we produce. Our society has plenty of transactional leaders—plenty of power brokers, plenty of people who would lead by celebrity cult or by exchanges of one favor for another. We must understand and seek to provide a higher degree of transforming leadership—the type that produces fundamental growth and develops new leaders for the future, the type that provides moral leadership, seeks consensus, provides mutual stimulation, and does not shy away from the occasional leap of faith. The type of leadership that truly values statesmanship, stewardship, and integrity of purpose highly above partisanship.

For too long, the more common type of leadership has been acceptable, based on the traditional power relationship and often a bargaining, manipulative style. And in the private sector we confuse true leadership traits with good management skills, or those attributes that produce efficiency, order, and often success in business, at least by the traditional standards. Don’t misunderstand me, good management we need, and good management skills are in short supply, but the leadership we need has very little to do with the functional aspects of managing.

Step two is simply getting involved. We in this country have a responsibility for individual commitment. It’s part of our heritage. The responsibility for the stewardship of our values is ours—yours and mine. We have spent much of the last fifty years transferring leadership to entities far detached from those who need it and whose expectations are to be fulfilled. In the past few years there have been signs that this trend is reversing itself through private sector and personal initiative and a return to volunteerism. It is crucial that this trend continue and that these initiatives succeed—in our schools, our communities, across the nation, so that a sense of “neighborhood” is cultivated once again. This is the necessary active involvement that Professor V. O. Key spoke of when he concluded, “the critical element for the health of a democratic order consists in the beliefs, standards and competence of those who constitute the opinion leaders and activists. If a democracy tends toward indecision, decay, and disaster, the responsibility rests there, not in the mass of the people.”

Our nation is in the midst of watershed transformation—the “third wave”, as Alvin Toffler has called this period. We have the future shock of the ever increasing pace of technology, the globalization of communications and markets, new definitions of values and lifestyles, new and more difficult tests of the old systems of evaluation and standards. Business as usual is out of business. This transformation in our society demands leadership to match, leadership that has vision, that exercises power prudently and for the right purposes, that is not afraid of the quantum leap in pursuit of excellence. Henry Kissinger once said: “true leadership involves taking people from where they are to where they have never been.” This is the leadership it is our responsibility to develop.

The recent announcement of breakthrough progress in mapping the human genome reminded me of a lecture on bioethics at Rice University I attended several years ago. It became clear to me then that our 27-year old war over abortion and the Roe v. Wade decision is just the tip of the iceberg compared to the ethical/moral dilemma we will certainly face as the genetic map reveals itself. In the May/June 1996 issue of Society magazine, Toby Huff describes genetic engineering as the fourth great scientific revolution, after the Copernican, the Darwinian, and the Freudian. In fact, the previous three upheavals in self understanding now seem to pale in comparison to the genetic possibilities that were formerly not only impossible but unimaginable. Man is now poised to alter the human genetic endowment—once thought to be irrevocably the purview of God. That means that increasingly what is “natural” is in doubt.

Peter Singer, who holds the chair in bioethics at Princeton University’s Center for Human Values, says we need a newly defined ethic, because the old one of the sanctity of human life based upon man created in God’s image has collapsed. This brand of opinion leadership in the bioethics community is fairly widespread. In order to have influence in this community, one must subscribe to the paradigm—those whose advocacy is rooted in religion and the Judeo-Christian ethic are usually ignored. According to Wesley J. Smith in his The Culture of Death, mainstream bioethics reached a consensus long ago that religious values are divisive in a pluralistic society and thus have little place in the formulation of public policy. As we grapple with the bioethical issues that unfold, we should be mindful that an era of genetic manipulation is upon us and many agendas will be at work. We should pay careful attention to those who would make public policy and remember that, as Horace Busby cautioned me many years ago, government is never a benign institution, that the purposes of those close to power and authority are never, innocently, to be trusted.

The belief that human behavior could be shaped by social engineering has had terrible consequences, particularly during the past century. The institutions of our liberal democratic order are based on the realities of human nature. As George Will has so eloquently put it, “If we treat moral scruples impatiently, as inherently retrograde in a scientifically advancing civilization, we will not be in moral trim when, soon, our very humanity will depend on it.”

A final point: It has been suggested by some, including Jeremy Rifkin, that the human gene pool and related intellectual property be held in trust as a “commons” for all mankind. I disagree in two respects—one, my genes are mine, they don’t belong to the state or the United Nations, and two, excluding the genes and the sequence itself, we must allow incentives and protection for private property rights for the proper future development of the spin-off intellectual property.

“There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.”—Alfred, Lord Tennyson

“As we celebrate this July 4th, there is much to be thankful for and, as Tennyson admonishes us, much to challenge. An election year in which a president will be chosen is as fine a time as any to examine our creeds and symbols. It is a time to raise honest doubt about who shall lead us and why. Whether at the White House or in Congress: Who are you who wish to lead? Our faith must be earned.

Equally important, who are we who wish to follow? Is big government acceptable or is Ronald Reagan’s vision of personal responsibility the better road to travel? To be an American means being passionate. It means leaving our children a better tomorrow. This is real patriotism, the stuff of heroes. How we live is who we are.”—Paul M. Rodriquez, Managing Editor, InsightMag.com