A priest whose name shall not be mentioned emailed me this morning to remind me that in a week and two days "a new era in mankind will begin . . . "
While millions of Americans cheerfully await the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama II there are a few of us who are not quite so cheerful. The question nagging the recalcitrant remnant falls on the character of the president-elect. Is he just another thuggish Chicago politico or is he the "great-souled man?"
In his recent book, The Case For Greatness , Boston College Political Science professor, Dr. Robert Faulkner, rather brilliantly differentiates the concept of the "great-souled man," where as Faulkner writes, "Aristotle fosters ambitious men good as well as great, and he would subordinate their greatness to the service of the country."
It is well worth noting that Faulkner’s analysis contrasts the modern (Enlightenment) theory of leadership proposed by Roger Bacon, with his "anti-moral implications," where "realism" acts to eclipse man’s inherent event of being, his openness to the divine, with that of the "ancient" accounts represented by Cicero’s classic De Officiis .
Does Obama represent the spoudaios , the "mature man who desires what is the truth . . . ," the man resisting the disorders of his age, where he is mature enough to understand the truth of reality?
Is he Plato’s daimonios aner , whose wisdom includes the love and knowledge of God?
Or, is he the tyrant rising?
