Character is still destiny after all these years
On Athenian democracy, lucky breaks, and the problem with voting like candidates are merely walking policy manifestoes
Nobody who has bothered to become familiar with the last 2,500 years (or more) of government by democracy should expect political leaders to be angels. Even the best leaders have flaws. But if there has been a consistent theme to the leading philosophical thoughts regarding leaders of all types -- democratically elected or not -- that theme is simple: Character is destiny.
■ Leaders of low character occasionally deliver good results. Leaders of high character sometimes flop. But, on the whole, it is not what a person knows or how magnificent their plans that decides whether they are remembered well. It is how their character (or, perhaps better, their array of personal virtues) holds up when they are equipped with power.
■ Lots of voters in America think that when they vote for a candidate, they are effectively purchasing a bundle of policies. This is emphatically not the case. Candidates express policy preferences, to be sure, but few candidates get elected by trying to advance policies that differ wildly from what the general public already wants.
■ The policy choices that really matter are the ones that nobody sees coming before election day. It’s easy to test popular opinion on the things we know we’re already fighting about. It’s the surprises that can’t be poll-tested. But the surprises matter most: They are fundamentally why we outsource our political choices to elected officials.
■ There is no time to conduct a plebiscite when a hurricane strikes, when banks teeter on the brink of failure, or when a neighboring state launches a bloody war of aggression. When a technological development is new, public information is limited, or past experience provides little in the way of useful guidance, even highly intelligent, engaged, and virtuous members of the public want people in charge who commit to a full-time job of assessing issues and information on their behalf and acting in ways that reflect well on the people. Voters who want good outcomes have to remember that policy platforms come cheap, but few things cost more than low character in high office.
