Democracy and Leadership

Irving Babbitt

1924

The masterwork of the New Humanism movement, arguing that democracy can only survive if guided by leaders disciplined by ethical and classical standards rather than romantic sentimentalism. Babbitt's critique of Rousseau and modern humanitarianism remains essential reading.

Introduction: The Problem of the Leader

When one seeks to determine what the civilized man should be, one needs to consider what the disciplined and cultivated individual has been in the past. The man who is to serve as a leader must first of all have achieved some measure of self-mastery. The unit to which all things must finally be referred is not the state or humanity or any other abstraction, but the man of character.

"The unit to which all things must finally be referred is not the state or humanity or any other abstraction, but the man of character."

It is only by the multiplication of men of character that society can be saved. Democratic society especially needs true leaders, since it is more exposed than other forms of society to the danger of falling into softness. The democratic leader, if he is to be worthy of the name, must himself be a man of standards, and he must be able to communicate these standards to others.

The problem of leadership is at bottom a problem of education, and the problem of education is at bottom a problem of defining the right kind of discipline. What discipline is needed to produce the leader who is qualified to guide a democracy? This is the central question of our time, and it is a question that cannot be answered without reference to the great tradition of humanistic thought.

Romanticism and Naturalism

The great illusion of modern times has been that man can achieve salvation through the natural order—by following his impulses and instincts instead of disciplining them. Rousseau taught that man is naturally good and that his badness is due to institutions; reform the institutions and man will be perfected. This doctrine has been the most influential single idea in modern history, and it has been almost entirely pernicious.

But human history teaches a different lesson. The natural man, unrestrained by either inner or outer discipline, tends not toward goodness but toward barbarism. Civilization is not natural; it is an achievement, and an achievement that must be won anew by each generation. The romantic who supposes that he can dispense with discipline is merely preparing the way for a new barbarism.

"The belief that man is naturally good leads logically to the conclusion that all restraint is evil."

The belief that man is naturally good leads logically to the conclusion that all restraint is evil. The romantic humanitarian accordingly attacks the traditional forms of control—religious, ethical, legal—as so many infringements on the liberty of the natural man. The result is not liberation but chaos. For man without discipline is not free; he is merely the slave of his own passions.

The romantic naturalist confuses two very different things: the natural and the normal. The natural is what man is when left to himself; the normal is what man should be when he has been properly disciplined. The natural man is a barbarian; the normal man is a civilized being. Education is the process by which the natural is transformed into the normal.

Rousseau's followers have sought to naturalize man; the true humanist seeks to humanize him. The difference is fundamental. To naturalize man is to strip away the restraints that make civilization possible; to humanize him is to develop those qualities of mind and character that distinguish the civilized man from the savage.

The Inner Check

The humanist agrees with the religious teacher that there is in man a higher and a lower nature, and that the higher must control the lower if man is to achieve his proper development. This higher nature manifests itself as a power of inner control, a frein vital, which the humanist sets over against the romantic élan vital.

"What is needed is a check upon impulse—a frein vital rather than an élan vital."

What is needed is a check upon impulse—a frein vital rather than an élan vital. The man who has developed this inner check is able to impose standards upon himself and upon others. Without such standards, neither individual virtue nor social order is possible. The undisciplined man is not merely a danger to himself; he is a danger to society.

The humanist finds the models for such discipline in the great ethical traditions of the past—in classical antiquity, in Buddhism, in Christianity. All the great teachers agree that man must work upon himself, that the good life requires effort and self-restraint. The easy path, the path of least resistance, leads not to happiness but to misery.

The inner check is not merely negative; it is the condition of all positive achievement. The artist who has not disciplined himself cannot produce great art; the thinker who has not disciplined himself cannot produce great thought; the statesman who has not disciplined himself cannot provide true leadership. Excellence in any field requires the subordination of the lower impulses to the higher.

The romantic believes that discipline destroys spontaneity and creativity. But the opposite is true. It is only through discipline that genuine creativity becomes possible. The undisciplined man is not creative; he is merely chaotic. His impulses cancel each other out, and nothing significant is achieved. The disciplined man, by contrast, is able to concentrate his energies and direct them toward worthy ends.

The Types of Leadership

There are fundamentally two types of leadership: the leadership that appeals to the higher nature of man, and the leadership that appeals to his lower nature. The true leader is he who has himself achieved a measure of inner discipline and who is able to inspire others to achieve the same. The false leader is he who flatters the multitude and appeals to its passions.

The humanitarian leader is typically a false leader. He pretends to love mankind, but what he really loves is his own benevolent feelings. He wishes to help the poor, but he is unwilling to demand of them the discipline that alone can raise them from poverty. He wishes to educate the ignorant, but he is unwilling to impose upon them the standards that alone can make education meaningful.

"The humanitarian wishes to be a leader, but he is unwilling to pay the price of leadership, which is self-discipline."

The humanitarian wishes to be a leader, but he is unwilling to pay the price of leadership, which is self-discipline. He wishes to reform society, but he is unwilling to reform himself. He demands that others change, but he exempts himself from the demand. This is the fundamental dishonesty of humanitarianism.

The true leader, by contrast, begins with himself. He knows that he cannot lead others until he has learned to lead himself. He knows that he cannot impose standards on others until he has first imposed them on himself. His authority comes not from his position but from his character. Men follow him because they recognize in him a quality that they wish to develop in themselves.

Democracy Without Standards

Democracy is of all forms of government the one that most requires ethical leadership. An aristocracy can maintain itself for a time on the accumulated moral capital of its traditions; a despotism can impose order by force. But a democracy must constantly renew its moral foundations through the character of its citizens and especially of its leaders.

"The American experiment in democracy has been from the start profoundly affected by the quality of the leadership that has been available."

The American experiment in democracy has been from the start profoundly affected by the quality of the leadership that has been available. The founders were men of classical education and ethical seriousness. They understood that popular government requires not less virtue but more virtue than other forms of government. They knew that the survival of the republic depended upon the character of its citizens.

But what happens when the standards by which leaders are judged are lowered? What happens when the humanitarian ideal of serving the people becomes a mere flattering of their prejudices? The leader then becomes a demagogue, and democracy degenerates into ochlocracy—rule by the mob. This is the danger that threatens every democracy, and it is a danger that can only be met by the cultivation of genuine standards.

The romantic democrat believes that the voice of the people is the voice of God. But this is a superstition. The voice of the people may be the voice of wisdom, or it may be the voice of folly. Everything depends upon whether the people have been properly educated. And the education of the people depends upon the quality of their leaders.

We are thus caught in a circle: the quality of the people depends upon the quality of their leaders, and the quality of the leaders depends upon the standards by which the people judge them. The only way to break this circle is to appeal to standards that are higher than both the people and their leaders—the standards embodied in the great tradition of humanistic thought.

The Peril of Humanitarianism

The sentimental humanitarian, in his zeal to improve the condition of mankind, refuses to admit that anything in man needs to be controlled. He sees man as a victim of circumstances, and he proposes to change the circumstances rather than to discipline the man. This is the fundamental error of modern social reform.

But circumstances are in large measure the creation of human character, and character cannot be improved by mechanical arrangements. The slum is not the cause of the slum-dweller's vices; the slum is the effect of those vices. To improve the slum without improving the character of its inhabitants is merely to transfer the problem to another location.

"Humanitarianism, when it is not supplemented by humanism, leads not to the liberation but to the degradation of man."

Humanitarianism, when it is not supplemented by humanism, leads not to the liberation but to the degradation of man. For it removes the pressure which alone can produce human excellence. The true humanitarian must be first of all a humanist. That is, he must recognize that the primary need is not to change man's environment but to change man himself. And this change can come only through the imposition of standards—standards which the leaders must first impose upon themselves.

The humanitarian confuses pity with love. Pity is a soft emotion that wishes to remove all suffering; love is a stern emotion that wishes to develop character. The truly loving parent does not shield his child from all hardship; he exposes the child to the discipline that will make him strong. The truly loving teacher does not lower his standards to accommodate the weak student; he challenges the student to rise to the standards.

Modern humanitarianism is essentially a disguised form of self-indulgence. The humanitarian enjoys the warm glow of benevolent feeling without accepting the hard discipline of genuine virtue. He wishes to be thought kind without being truly kind. He wishes to help others without helping himself. This is not love but sentimentality, and sentimentality is the enemy of all genuine improvement.

Education and the Will

The problem of leadership is at bottom a problem of education. But what kind of education? The romantic educator believes that education should be pleasant, that children should be allowed to develop naturally, that discipline is harmful to the growing mind. This is the Rousseauistic theory of education, and it has been responsible for much of the softness of modern culture.

The humanistic educator, by contrast, believes that education should be difficult, that children should be trained in the classical disciplines, that the formation of character is more important than the acquisition of information. The purpose of education is not to make the child happy but to make him good—or, more precisely, to give him the tools by which he can make himself good.

"The purpose of education is not to make the child happy but to make him good."

At the center of humanistic education is the training of the will. The intellect alone cannot save us; it must be supplemented by a disciplined will. The man who knows the good but lacks the will to pursue it is in a worse condition than the man who is merely ignorant. Knowledge without virtue is not wisdom but cleverness, and cleverness without virtue is dangerous.

The will is trained by practice, not by precept. The child must be made to do difficult things, not because they are pleasant but because they are difficult. He must be taught to postpone gratification, to subordinate his impulses to his purposes, to endure hardship without complaint. These are the fundamental habits of character, and without them no genuine education is possible.

Modern education has largely abandoned the training of the will. It has substituted entertainment for discipline, self-expression for self-control, adjustment to society for the formation of character. The result has been a generation of educated barbarians—people who have acquired much information but little wisdom, who can talk about values but cannot live by them.

The Recovery of Standards

The recovery of ethical standards is the most urgent task of our time. Without such standards, democracy cannot survive. The first step in this recovery must be taken by the leaders themselves—the teachers, the writers, the statesmen. They must subject themselves to the discipline which they would impose upon others.

The humanist is not a pessimist. He believes that human nature, though not naturally good, is capable of good when properly disciplined. He believes that the standards necessary for this discipline exist and are discoverable. The great traditions of ethical and religious wisdom are still available to those who will seek them.

"The best that any one can do is to work for the recovery of standards. The battle, one may be sure, is not lost."

The best that any one can do is to work for the recovery of standards. The battle, one may be sure, is not lost. But it will not be won by those who flatter the people or who abandon themselves to the currents of their time. It will be won by those who have the courage to stand against the current, to affirm the permanent values in a world of flux, to be humanists in an age of humanitarians.

The recovery of standards must begin with the individual. Each person must ask himself: What are my standards? By what principles do I live? Am I willing to subordinate my impulses to these principles? Am I willing to pay the price of self-discipline? These are the fundamental questions, and until they are answered the recovery of standards cannot begin.

The Modern Dilemma

The modern world faces a dilemma: it has lost faith in the old standards without finding new ones to replace them. The traditional authorities—the church, the classics, the accumulated wisdom of the race—have been discredited by the romantic attack. But the romantic substitutes—nature, feeling, the general will—have proved to be no substitutes at all.

The result is a kind of moral paralysis. Modern man does not know what he should do because he does not know what he should be. He is told that all values are relative, that there are no permanent standards, that each person must decide for himself what is right. But this is not liberation; it is chaos. The man who has no standards is not free; he is merely confused.

"The man who has no standards is not free; he is merely confused."

The humanist offers a way out of this dilemma. He does not ask modern man to return to the Middle Ages or to abandon the genuine achievements of modernity. He asks only that modern man recover the permanent elements in the human tradition—the elements that are common to all the great ethical and religious systems, the elements that define what it means to be genuinely human.

These elements are not difficult to discover. They include the subordination of impulse to reason, the cultivation of moderation, the practice of self-discipline, the recognition of a higher and a lower self, the acknowledgment that some ways of life are better than others. These are the permanent truths of humanism, and they are as valid today as they were in the time of Aristotle or Confucius.

Conclusion

The future of democracy depends upon the recovery of genuine leadership, and genuine leadership depends upon the recovery of standards. The standards that we need are not new; they are the permanent standards of humanistic thought. What is needed is not innovation but recovery—the recovery of truths that have been forgotten or obscured.

The humanist does not despair of democracy. He believes that democracy, rightly understood, is the best form of government. But he insists that democracy must be guided by wisdom, and wisdom requires discipline. The undisciplined democracy is not a democracy at all; it is a mob. And the mob, sooner or later, will find its tyrant.

The choice before us is clear: either we recover the humanistic standards that alone can guide democracy, or we prepare the way for despotism. There is no third alternative. The romantic experiment has failed; the humanitarian dream has proved to be a nightmare. The only hope is a return to the perennial wisdom of the race.

"Either we recover the humanistic standards that alone can guide democracy, or we prepare the way for despotism. There is no third alternative."

This return does not mean a rejection of modernity. It means rather a critical appropriation of modernity—taking what is good and rejecting what is bad. The humanist is not a reactionary; he is a conservative in the best sense of the word. He wishes to conserve the permanent achievements of human civilization while adapting them to new circumstances.

The task before us is immense, but it is not impossible. The resources are available; the tradition is still alive; the capacity for discipline is still present in human nature. What is needed is the will to begin—the will to subject ourselves to the standards that we would impose upon others, the will to be humanists rather than humanitarians, the will to lead rather than to follow.

Babbitt's work profoundly influenced the development of American conservatism, particularly through his students and admirers, including T.S. Eliot and Russell Kirk. His critique of romantic humanitarianism and his call for ethical leadership rooted in classical standards remain relevant to contemporary debates about democracy, education, and culture. The New Humanism he championed continues to offer an alternative to both progressive utopianism and reactionary despair.

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