[February 8, 2017] This past Sunday, prior to watching the Super Bowl, my wife recommended a movie starring Anthony Hopkins (as an English butler) that I’d neither seen or heard of. The movie we saw is called The Remains of the Day (1993). It remained me of David Halberstam’s theme in his 1972 book, The Best and The Brightest and how with the very best people crucial decisions can go wrong.
Leading up to World War II, the movie’s plot revolves around the butler’s loyalty to British Lord Darlington; the latter who hosts lavish meetings in the 1930s between German sympathizers and English aristocrats. Darlington believes in peaceful coexistence with Germany and that the British should have close ties with the Nazi government. He is supported in this view by a French diplomat and the British Prime Minister, plus many other senior dignitaries in attendance.
Halberstam’s book is an account of how the arrogant, insular, technocratically well-educated, and affluent sons and daughters of the Power Elite in America could lead us into the Vietnam War and keep us in it for so long. As part of U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s cabinet, full of brilliant men and women, the alumni of the best schools and best families, bungled their way toward the single most disastrous series of military decisions since the beginning of World War II.
Sometimes the very best, very brightest, best educated, and well-breed among us are not the ones who make the best decisions. The interplay between ego and political expediency reminds me of the Obama years where the progressive ideology (adopted by very smart people) enraptured so many and was bankrupt in actual results that failed to benefit America where it counts; in safety, economic prosperity, solidarity, and peace.
In the movie, during one of the meetings, an American senator in attendance criticizes Lord Darlington and the many present aristocrats as being “amateurs” in foreign affairs and politics. The senator says that such important matters of state should be left up to professionals because the world is changing. There is near total disagreement with his stance as those very same aristocrats are more educated than the common man and therefore, the argument goes, possess the knowledge, reasoning prowess, and breeding to know what is best for the nation.
The best and the brightest are not often either the best or the right people to make crucial decisions (or even recommendations) for the nation. Not that higher education and intelligence is unimportant, but it is not a test for significance in the battle for ideas and solutions.1
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- An interesting side note … Steve Bannon, the White House’s chief strategist, has allowed his personal reading list to go public. They have one thing in common: “the view that technocrats have put Western civilization on a downward trajectory and that only a shock to the system can reverse its decline.” – http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/02/steve-bannon-books-reading-list-214745