Discussion of Lincoln’s Melancholy by Joshua Shenk (Ed Shapiro)


But for the purposes of discussion, there is one place in this lovely book where I would raise a question for us to think about a bit more. It is this idea: Shenk says: “What primarily accounted for Lincoln’s increasing success – and his vital relevance – was not his own growth to a place where he could speak to his country’s needs, but the country’s regression to the place where Lincoln was needed – an emerging violence and fractiousness that had no peer in the nation’s history. Lincoln denied the possibility of papering over distinctions – and helped precipitate the very crisis that he said would have to be reached and passed.”

We could spend a long time together thinking about Shenk’s notion of a culture regressing to meet – or even to create – the leader the society needs. The implicit question for me is whether leadership is a social or an individual phenomenon – is a leader created, discovered, imposed – or is the meeting of the two purely accidental? Do we actually get the leaders we deserve? And is there a way to examine these phenomena to determine where the forces come from that create the meeting of the leader and the led?

Why this particular, very pained man was made to bear the crucible of a fragmented society – and how he came to articulate so lucidly and clearly the core and ultimately sustaining value of a differentiated but equal society – are not questions that Shenk – or anyone --can really answer. But in an era where ethnic identity alone can get you locked up and tortured in a frightened and indifferent America, how we get the leaders we need to articulate the values for this generation that will contain our terror and rage is a question that we should continue to ask.