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A Quiet Adult: My Candidate for Man of the Century
A Quiet Adult: My Candidate for Man of the Century
by David Brin
It seems our favorite preoccupation this year -- even more riveting than worry about the Y2K bug -- is an obsession with making lists. The 100 best movies of all time. Top musicians of the millennium. And so on, as if we'll somehow better grasp the coming era by tidily summing up the past.
Time Magazine is one beneficiary of this mania, as crowds throng to its web site eagerly voting for who will be named "Person of the Century". Of course the matter won't be decided democratically. Time's editors will select whose face fills the first Year 2000 cover. (And pedants will insist that Time can do it all over again in January 2001, when the next century officially begins.)
Naturally, I have an opinion. But I'm not hopeful that Time's editors will pick my candidate, a man whose name many readers may not recognize, even though they owe him a great deal.
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The poll figures at the Time Magazine web site show, if nothing else, the power of organized write-in campaigns. Heading the list are Yitzhak Rabin, Elvis Presley, and Billy Graham. In slots number six through eight we have Pope John Paul II, Martin Luther King and Gordon B. Hinckley, Chairman of the Mormon Church. People also tend to pick "favorite" figures, hence the prominent appearance in the top 20 of John Lennon, Madonna and Princess Diana.
A large number of rather dour folks seem to have concluded (reluctantly, I hope) that Adolf Hitler was the most significant figure of this century, because he caused the biggest ruckus and slaughtered lots of people. This faction is large enough to win him the number four slot.
Only a handful of the top twenty made a decisively positive difference to world history, instigating profound and universally recognized changes for the better. People like Dr. King, Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and Henry Ford certainly deserve mention. But in my opinion, none of the flamboyant top candidates altered the course of human civilization as much as one quiet man who was never an entertainer, religious figure, or chief of state.
His name was George Marshall. Let me explain.
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At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, there were fond hopes for a new era of reason. Some of the world's great intellects spoke of a coming time when nations would abandon the strict command hierarchies of the past, such as monarchy or inherited wealth, in favor of more open systems based on merit. A time when colonialism would give way to equality among peoples and superstition would step aside for of free enquiry. While few contemporary politicians shared these aspirations, there were some exceptions. Theodore Roosevelt and later Woodrow Wilson proclaimed their belief in such a vision, calling for a mature, planet-wide civilization based on pragmatism, mutual respect, local self-determination, universal education, democracy, and international cooperation for peace.
As we all know, events did not go as they wished. After the horrific agonies of World War One, the progressive worldview was rejected both in America and abroad, partly due to narrow minded self-interest, but also because humanity was otherwise preoccupied. Like careening drunks, we commenced a long and horrible infatuation with ideologies -- from communism and fascism to nationalist jingoism and every other "ism" imaginable.
Hitler and Stalin were no more than particularly gruesome manifestations of this fever -- a passion for simplistic visions of utopia, shared with almost hysterical ardor by millions who invested their favorite manifestos with the kind of devotion formerly given to kings and religions. These hypnotic formulas were nearly always based on reducing human beings to formulas or paper caricatures, denying our true complexity.
Today, at the end of this tense century, we might look back on it as a pit that Homo sapiens fell into, then somehow managed to climb out of again, chastened and perhaps even a bit wiser. Though ideology still sings its polyphonic siren call to millions, the trend in human affairs seems now to be gradual movement toward tolerance and pragmatism... along with a healthy dose of suspicion toward all authority. Despite a myriad problems, ours is a better, more hopeful world than it was in 1942, when humanity wallowed in violence, justified by frantic polemics.
How did this change come about?
First and above all, the worst ideologues had to be defeated. For this task, Franklin Delano Roosevelt -- who guided the United States from isolation into the crucial alliance against fascism -- relied utterly upon his most trusted military advisor, George Marshall.
Earlier, Marshall had been responsible for training a generation of American officers in completely new doctrines and tactics that modernized our armed forces, preparing them to face the coming struggle with unprecedented agility. Then, as Chief of Staff, Marshall streamlined the chain of command and personally selected the younger leaders who won great victories.
When offered command over the D-Day invasion of Europe, and the glory that would come with it, Marshall passed that honor to Dwight Eisenhower because FDR confided -- "I don't sleep well when you are away." His value as a wartime diplomat, nurturing a fragile alliance among prickly allies, was immeasurable. In gratitude, Winston Churchill called him 'the noblest Roman.'
Marshall's most difficult work commenced after victory was achieved. Dragged out of retirement in order to serve as U.S. Secretary of State, he worked with fellow titans -- Harry Truman and Dean Acheson -- to counter relentless crises from Finland to Greece and helped midwife the birth of Israel.
Of course he was the guiding force behind the "Marshall Plan", which turned the great wealth of the United States into a river for the war-ravaged peoples of Europe and Asia. In fact, if the Plan had been his sole accomplishment, it would be enough to merit placement on the short list for Man of the Century. That one act of resolve -- achieved over fierce political opposition -- reversed the bellicose tradition of 4,000 years by treating vanquished foes with generosity instead of vindictiveness. Among those who have been honored with the Nobel Peace Prize, few names were ever so universally acclaimed.
While Marshall's name may be unfamiliar today, the respect that mid-century contemporaries held for him was almost unprecedented. President Harry Truman once said of Marshall that "He was a man you could count on to be truthful in every way, and when you find somebody like that, you have to hang on to them."
David McCullough adds to this image, in his biography of Truman. "Like George Washington, with whom he was often compared, Marshall was a figure of such flawless rectitude and self-command (that) he both inspired awe and made description difficult."
Amid the tempests of an angry era, Marshall (again, in cooperation with others) helped ensure that the United Nations was built into something more capable than the old League of Nations and that the principles Woodrow Wilson pleaded for in 1919 would at last become the official standards of world conduct.
Yes, I'll concede the obvious. Adherence to those standards has been spotty, even by the nations who championed them. Nevertheless, we should find it profoundly historic that there is now a widely accepted world moral code, one that even the worst dictators pay lip service to. Today the words that Woodrow Wilson used so long ago cast long shadows across every negotiating table. They have weight whenever oppressed people rise up to denounce the tyrants that kept them down. Without a world conscience to appeal to, how would Ghandi and Mandella have prevailed? Marshall played an important role in putting ideals high on the international agenda.
Alas, ideals aren't enough. Good words often must team up with harsh practicality. Back in the late forties, ideological fevers still raged, both in Moscow and in a Washington D.C. that seemed awash with hysteria and panic. Surrounded by frantic calls for either isolationism or spasmodic war against the Soviets, George Marshall calmly helped forge the Atlantic Alliance. The strategy of containment that he and Acheson devised -- aiming to neither provoke the Communist Empire, nor allow it to run wild -- was the middle road that guided every U.S.administration for 50 years, notwithstanding episodes of naivete and saber-rattling.
In sharp contrast to the spasmodic impulsiveness that used to drive international affairs, Marshall's global plan was sober, far-seeing, patient, prescient, and it held until the Soviet fever finally broke.
Many mistakes -- and even calamities -- happened along the way. Much that is regrettable was done in the name of America and the West. But you have only to ask the people of Prague, Warsaw, and a hundred other places how they feel about the outcome.
Above all, we did not panic and fry this planet.
Wasn't that enough?
Then consider yet another great service, when the administration headed by Truman and Marshall ordered the United States military to end racial segregation and discrimination in its ranks, becoming the first great American institution to show the way. With the armed forces integrated -- passing millions of young men through a rigorous "school for equality" -- the writing was on the wall. There could be no going back. The rest of society must follow.
George Marshall would be the last to claim sole credit for any of these accomplishments. Invariably courteous and imperturbable under pressure -- ('the imperturbability of a good conscience,' George Kennan called it) -- he was, in David McCullough's words "without a trace of petty vanity or self-serving ambition."
Which is my chief point in nominating him. For it is ultimately demeaning to pick one charismatic individual, elevating him to stand, detached in godlike splendor, above all the other billions who lived and labored in this century, making our age unlike any other for its combination of savagery and progress. The great achievements of this era were realized by teams of bright, cooperative people, not megalomaniacs or magnetic orators. In the long run, leaders are only as effective as the citizens they persuade to follow them.
By appointing and encouraging skilled people, demanding the best from them, and then stepping aside when his pupils won acclaim, George Marshall showed us how to guide a modern, confident civilization, not a fervid rabble. This style explains his effectiveness... and the reason why so few of his countrymen now know his name.
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As the Twentieth Century wanes, the notion of arranging society according to some contrived dogma has at long last begun to seem tiresome. Many of us now see that all of the radical and zealous prescriptions were part of the same feverish disease, that only time and patience could cure. Even modern saints like Ghandi -- though properly admired for their principles and moral courage -- are seen to have been limited or foolish in their specific political agendas, from pastoral-socialism to libertarian solipsism. Humanity proved more complex than ideologues ever imagined.
Couldn't the "Man of the Century" somehow reflect this hardwon lesson? Naturally, it should be a person who dramatically affected the course of human events. But how about also picking someone who can serve as a role model?
Many of the most popular candidates displayed courage, brilliance, fortitude, compassion and relentless tenacity -- admirable traits of heroes. Indeed, George Marshall exhibited many of those same qualities.
But he also showed a few that are far more rare. Calmness, quiet competence, adaptability, a genius for detecting and promoting talent, an aversion toward flamboyance, plus a tireless willingness to hear the other guy's point of view.
These traits go beyond mere heroism. They are features of a genuine adult.
That word -- adult -- is one the editors of Time Magazine might do well to ponder when they pick a "Man of the Century." If we humans are going to make something of ourselves in the next hundred years, we should not start by picking our role models from among the last century's passionate prima donnas.
How about instead honoring the millions who are best exemplified by George Marshall. Those who spent their lives in quiet service, showing us how to behave as grownups.
-- David Brin
November 1999
http://www.kithrup.com/brin/
David Brin is a scientist and bestselling novelist. His 1989 thriller Earth foresaw both global warming and the World Wide Web. A movie with Kevin Costner was loosely based on The Postman. Startide Rising is in pre-production at Paramount Pictures. His latest novel, Foundation's Triumph, brings to a grand finale Isaac Asimov's famed Foundation Universe.
Brin's non-fiction book -- The Transparent Society: Will Technology Make Us Choose Between Freedom and Privacy? -- deals with threats to openness and liberty in the new wired-age. http://www.kithrup.com/brin/
I get particularly annoyed by this mistake because this simplistic definition and condemnation tend to be attached to anyone who sees large-scale problems and calls for large-scale solutions. Sometimes the assertion that problems are complex is used to paralyze any kind of action at all, on the grounds that we have to complete our analysis before we do anything even if that takes forever. It's important that over-simplistic thinking be refuted where it's spouted, but I think trying to create a category called "ideology" meaning "analysis of society, its problems and solutions that I don't like" is as meaningless as talking about "pornography" meaning "erotica that I don't like".
There are ills that Hitler and Stalin have in common, but this way of looking at them doesn't capture them.
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Xenu loves you!
According to the history books, Churchill came up with an answer: get help -- American help -- by any means necessary. That's pretty much what happened, modulo Hitler's suicidal stupidity in violating both of Liddel-Hart's two rules of warfare ("never start a war on two fronts" and "never start a land war in asia"). But Roosevelt charged a heavy price, one that most Americans today don't even understand:
He demanded -- and got -- the dismantling of the British empire.
In 1945, Britain was within one week of going bankrupt. It would have been easy to drain the resources of India, Australia, and other countries to support the devastated Imperial hub ... but instead, they quietly and without much fuss shut down the largest empire the world has ever seen (at one point it covered 24.6% of the planet).
Giving Marshall Aid to Britain would have undermined the US State Department's leverage over a British government that wasn't really sure it wanted to definitively relinquish its place as a superpower (which is what the UK was, prior to 1914).
I know this is tired, but I figure someone has to say it.
The Marshall Plan was 'a good thing' but strangely the people of, say, Britain were rather confused about the way the US was so keen to help the vanquished, and yet at the same time, so very unwilling to help the victors. Britain's war debt to the US was crippling for years after the end of the war, and the US wasn't all that keen to write it off.
I'm no expert on the history of all this, but more than one person has pointed out that the Marshall Plan, as well as ensuring a sort of peace, also ensured increased power for the US and a nice market to export to.
So, not everyone in Europe sees the Marshall Plan as the most wonderful act of generosity ever conceived....
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I'm surprised General Marshall hasn't popped up earlier (in public, not on /.), but then again, sadly, maybe I'm not.
;)
It's strange how history works, how for the greatest stresses and strains great men (and women) seem to come to the fore. Or at least, if they're not great, they put aside their weaknesses to lead. Turns out we were lucky in getting Marshall, Bradley, Nimitz, Eisenhower, great men and great leaders. The last time a happy accident like that came about in Western Civ was probably the American Revolution..
Hell, I'd compare George Marshall to Agricola as much as to George Washington. Anyone would be infinitely lucky to live in a nation founded on the principles of any of those men.
What has this to do with slashdot, you might ask? Well, if it wasn't for Marshall, you probably wouldn't be at that terminal looking at pixels, you'd probably be a wisp of carbon dancing gently across a pockmarked landscape or starving to death in a still-bombed-out European city. I guess it shows that, on occasion, America can export something a bit more useful to the world than 'Baywatch'. If there's any justice, Marshall stands among the greatest men in all of recorded history. And having an idea of Marshall, he probably would balk when asked to line up with them
Happy holidays!
Your Working Boy,
We need to ask ourselves: Why do we really need a man (or woman, let's be PC for a minute) of the century? Is it really that important to pick one person and tell everybody that that one is the best/most important/etc.?
All these arguments over who is person of the year, person of the century, Time's poster-boy, whose face goes on the Wheaties box... It's all rather absurd if you stand back and take a look at it! What these magazines and writers should be focusing on is the fact that it took the cooperation (and competition) of LOTS of people to make the world what it is today... not just one or two guys.
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There is no question in my mind of the greatness of George Marshall. He is the greatest statesman of the century and the man who is responsible in large part for the success of democracy over tyranny in the second half of the 20th century.
There are very few others that I would place in the same league. Perhaps Zhang Zemin and Teddy Roosevelt.
From the technology field I'd pick Einstein and Fleming. But at this elevated level the competition is so great....
The real question I wonder about is who is the man of the millenium...
My choice is Thomas Jefferson. When John Kennedy gave a state dinner for American Noble Prize winners (about 100 attended) he started off his introduction with... "Never has there been assembled at the White House such talent since Thomas Jefferson dined here... alone".
He's not saying that having an overarching strategy to solve problems is bad. He's saying that taking one stance on everything is. One viewpoint, and no matter whether it fits or not, shoving the problem through it, is bad. The idea that you can reduce all of the worlds problems and solutions to a set of dogmatic beliefs.
And worse not just adopting the static set of viewpoints for yourself. But making/forcing everyone else in a state/nation/whatever to follow it also. A mature individual is someone who can calmly look at the facts, and come up with a good solution for a problem without trying to let their own biases screw up the process too much. A mature society is very similair. No one is saying you can't have a philosophy/ideology of your own. He's saying one-size-fit's-all is a poor fit for your mind.
That's the problem with military force, and government power in general - it's a vector quantity that can be rotated very rapidily, increased more slowly, and almost never reduced. A powerful military may be pointing in the "protect our people's freedom" direction one month and the "destroy the enemies of the Fatherland" direction the next.
Also note that being opposed to a strong standing military doesn't mean being a pacifist. The authors of the Federalist papers viewed a standing army as one of the greatest threats to freedom, prefering a strong militia to defend the nation from invasion.
But it is an interesting question whether non-violent resistance could have turned the German population away from Hitler with less loss of life than was involved in WWII. Thoreau's civil disobedience was a tactic designed for use against the laws of one's own government, and that's where it has seen its greatest successes - Indian independance, the US civil rights movement, the end of apartheid. I don't know if it could be used against an invading state.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Don't forget that many anti-communist agitators in eastern europe were priests. Several were killed for such activity in Poland alone; the pope himself only barely escaped that sad fate.
That said, anti-communism strikes me as a one-note philosophy, lacking a connection to a larger whole or principle. Which isn't to say that anticommunists are unprincipled, merely that the anti-communist movement as a whole is such an incredibly mixed bag that we can use it as proof of almost nothing - except for anti-communism itself, of course. It spans the breadth of political thought, from die-hard leftist intellectuals (Orwell) to totalitarian dictators of the worst order (Pinochet).
When selecting a man of the century, one should select a man who exemplifies the thought of the century. Should we select a man who exemplifies only a single thought - perhaps a man who only had a single thought? If we are to select a laughingstock, then we should abandon all pretense and seek out the greatest laughingstock available.
If we are to seek out a great man, on the other hand, then someone who thought great thoughts and performed great deeds (that is, someone who wasn't along for the ride of history) is as good a choice as you could possibly make. Marshall is an entirely apt choice in this respect.
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There is no premature anti-fascism. -Ernest Hemingway
I've noticed that several people are already complaining about the fact that Marshall was a member of the military.
I keep getting this feeling that a lot of you believe that being a member of the military automatically makes you a violent person who likes to kill.
There are very few jobs in this world where the employee enjoys EVERY SINGLE task that they have to perform. The same is true of the military. If you took a poll of military people, and asked them how many look forward to war and killing people, I'll bet less that 1% answer that they want war and death.
Being Pro-military in the USA does not mean you are Pro-war, or even Pro-conflict. It means you are Pro-defense, and often Pro-peace.
Does the bully quit picking picking on the little guy because the little guy 'wants to talk about it'? Not likely. He will quit when someone with equal power and strength, or even less power and strength but more courage, stands up to him.
To say that you could like Marshall, except that he was a 'military man' is just dumb. The fact that he was a high ranking member of the military does not mean he was a murderer, a war-monger, hateful, or violent. It does mean he believed in defending what you believed to be right. The pen is not always mightier than the sword and sometimes physical power is required for defence as a last resort.
"Anyone who can't laugh at himself is not taking life seriously enough." - Larry Wall
Ah, Marshall. An excellent paen to a forgotten hero as well as why the list thing is inane in te first place.
Assuming that you are right Mr. Brin -- and I think you have put together a very persuasive piece -- it is sad to say that Time would never put on the cover a visage and name that would leave 80% of the population under the age of 65 just scratching their heads going, "huh?"
Marshall may win on the fundamentals but I have to give Churchill the win on style points. Sure he was an egotist, but what a life he lived!
Also, gotta thow Gahndi in there. If one is consigering Dr. King, one should go straight to the source. He taught Dr. King everything he knew and made freedom possible for more than half a billion. King is such a navel-gazing, America-centric choice.
"Being Irish, he possessed an abiding sense of tragedy which sustained him through brief episodes of joy." -W. B.
Long after people have forgotten about Marshall, simply the administrator in charge of a huge welfare program to rebuild the "Kosovo of 1945" ("Europe", that is, Kosovo on a grander scale), people will instead remember the ones who pioneered a new way to look at information, a way that reshaped the modern economies of the world.
You don't have to buy everything Stallman talks about or even like him, he's a fallible human like everyone else: the "give me liberty or give me death" squad of this age. But he was, early and often, the gazeteer of the movement, the wacky anarchist on the soapbox in the public square. In the next century, when technology is creating many marvelous possibilties and you are thankful that the human genome has been GPLed, you'll come to understand what I'm talking about.
Also, despite his accomplishments in more peaceful fields, Marshall is too much of a militarist for me to respect this much, me being a pacifist.
So, while George Marshall was certainly a great man, he was not a man I could nominate for this title as I am European. :)
Like I said, and I think you agree, I don't think facism or communism or capitalism or whatever will ever be able to explain a person, much less society. However, we may be able to come out of the 20th century with the knowledge that we need to be wary of anyone who proselytizes the simple solutions that historical ideologies have proffered. We may not need to condemn them (i.e. MLK or Ghandi), but we need to be sure to understand that there is something deeper than their simple solutions.
So, I think what Brin is trying to say is that ideologies, at least by his definition, are just the facade or "front" for deeper issues, whether we understand that at the time or not. As such, they can't address everything coherently. He is not saying that "ideologies are bad because ideologies are bad"...that would be tautological and pretty silly. It seems that he is simply showing how, by his definition of ideologies as "simplistic visions of utopia", ideologies are not the final answer, and that we need to learn that lesson.
I think you're right, though, that we can't let this stifle our search for the answer. Some "ideologies" have been almost inarguably good in their effects, and we've learned a lot from even the bad ones (not that I'd care to repeat some of them!). Hopefully the lesson we take with us will be one of humility, something like "we don't know the answer, we've tried some simple ones that for whatever reason don't work, but we've learned to be more careful and think about things a little more". Who knows. At least people like you and Brin are thinking about it; if everyone looked at it with some criticality, I think we could solve a lot of problems (although that, too, is probably an ideology :).