Joseph Ellis continues to weave history via wonderful segments that capture the progress of time in the context of the person. In “His Excellency: George Washington”, the first president comes through as an ambitious, self-interested person who was able to harness his emotions for the sake of a higher goals, including his personal interests.
The gems that I got from the book are two:
(1) Even in the earliest part of our nation’s history, he recognized that problems only get addressed when a crisis occurs (“the people must feel before they will see”). Even then, today’s inability to deal with problems that are relatively conceded as urgent, e.g., health care, Medicare, seems to be consistent with his views that people must feel the problem before accepting a solution. In health care, there has been a change since 1992 when Clinton’s attempt failed miserably. Increased costs for the individual policy holder, increased number of those without insurance, and the foreseen increases in the future have softened people’s resistance to change.
(2) George Washington understood power and its correlative self-interest. He recognized that no one or nation is ultimately motivated by anything short of self-interest. For him, treaties were valid only as long as those signing the treating saw its terms meeting their needs. Given Washington’s perception that our nation would be singular by virtue of putting the national good above the interests of individual states, it did not take long of such partisanship to emerge.
Through life, this has been a hard reality to swallow. I still hold on to the naïve notion that ideals motivate people to rise above their self-interests. In terms of today’s political races for the presidency, it is hard for me to see that only self-interests will motivate people to action. I still nourish the hope that the rhetoric of Obama will cause people to give up some personal gains for the sake of the nation.
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