“The statesman is an educator who leads through language — who gives a people the language they need to think about themselves.” — Steven B. Smith on what makes a statesman

Was Odysseus a statesman? The Yale political philosopher Steven B. Smith — who, by the way, can’t beg, steal or borrow a ticket to Christopher Nolan’s cinematic epic — offers a cautious yes. While Odysseus wasn’t exactly a founder of states, he was, to borrow one of Homer’s favorite words, “polytropos” — which translates as many-sided, a master of the political adaptability that Machiavelli demanded of his Prince.

In his forthcoming On Statesmanship, Smith distinguishes the true statesman from the mere leader. All 195 states in the world have leaders, he says, almost none are blessed with statesmen. A genuine statesman, he explains, is an educator who leads his fellow citizens through language. So Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address gave Americans new words to think about themselves. Just like de Gaulle’s “certain idea of France” and Churchill’s uncompromisingly defiant language in 1940.

For statesmen, timing is everything. “Fortune is a woman,” Machiavelli advised his Prince, so she should be mastered adventurously. Many are called, few are chosen. But then they are unchosen. That same unbowed Churchill spent a decade in the political wilderness before 1940, then got booted out of office at the end of the war. Hegel called such figures world-historical individuals — used by history, then cruelly discarded. Ironically, it’s “great” men of history like Odysseus and Churchill who are most vulnerable to its female fortune.

On Statesmanship is equally clear about who doesn’t qualify for this exclusive club. Smith argues that Lenin, Hitler, and Napoleon might have founded states, but weren’t statesmen because they had no respect for the rule of law. Nor is the club purely Western, white, or male. Mandela, Havel, Gandhi, and MLK all qualify as “statesmen without states.” Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew makes the cut as a constitutionalist if not a democrat. Fortune might be a woman, but Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhi mastered fate with more adventure than their male colleagues.

Political leadership these days, Smith says, is monopolized by either technocrats or demagogues. In fact, Smith can only name one true contemporary statesman — Volodymyr Zelensky who, he says, is “doing a stirring imitation of Winston Churchill.” Otherwise the world is drifting into Thucydides’ trap where the strong do what they like and the weak suffer what they must. Thus our longing for many-sided leaders like Odysseus. Which is why Nolan’s blockbuster is such a hit that Steven Smith has yet to see it.

One small footnote to this conversation. Afterwards, Smith sent me a note expressing a correction of how he described Obama:

“Reflecting back on the conversation, I was embarrassed about what I said about Obama lacking ‘civil courage.’ That is not exactly what I meant. Probably a better formulation would be to say that he lacked what Plato called ‘thymos,’ a kind of public-spirited anger. His rationality and ‘coolness’ — in many ways admirable traits — gave the impression that he was too aloof from the rough-and-tumble of politics. Anger and indignation when judiciously employed, as my former student Amia Srinivasan has argued, remain formidable tools in the statesman’s tool kit.”

Five Takeaways

• A Leader Is Not a Statesman. 195 states have leaders; almost no statesmen. The statesman is an educator who leads through language.

• Timing. Churchill: wilderness, hour, voted out. History uses statesmen — then discards them.

• Who’s In. Not Lenin, Hitler, Napoleon. Yes: Mandela, Havel, Gandhi, King, Thatcher. “Statesperson” is ugly.

• The Anti-Statesmen. The technocrat has no narrative; the demagogue rules through fear — Trump, classically.

• One Statesman Standing. Zelensky, “doing a stirring imitation of Winston Churchill.” The alternative: Thucydides.

About Keen On America

Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.

Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow

Preorder On Statesmanship: yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300281743/on-statesmanship

Chapters:

00:00:31 Introduction: is Odysseus a statesman?
00:04:32 A leader is not a statesman
00:06:00 The statesman as educator
00:07:04 Lincoln’s language: the Gettysburg standard
00:08:57 Timing: the wilderness and the hour
00:13:37 The tragedy of statesmen: used and discarded
00:14:13 Why Lenin, Hitler, and Napoleon don’t qualify
00:18:31 Mandela, Lee Kuan Yew, and statesmen without states
00:26:33 One statesman standing: Zelensky’s Churchill imitation
00:29:25 The Obama enigma — a question of thymos
00:33:39 The anti-statesmen: technocrat and demagogue
00:35:26 Advice to Democrats: an affirmative America
00:40:35 A world without statesmen: Thucydides’ warning
00:42:07 Thanks and goodbye