-- Kermit Roosevelt, the Kennedy boys, various Lees and Goulds -- used to rush into crises, rather than being the first ones pulled out.
Perhaps this illustrates what Leo Strauss said about the erosion of values among the elite, and the social value of elites, in modern, western, "liberal" countries. No matter what you may think about Strauss and his Neo-conservative followers, the following seems apt:
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7335 Prospect March 2006 | No more heroes
Edward Skidelsky
Liberalism expresses the mundanity of the modern age, its mistrust of heroes and ideals. In Strauss's words, it deliberately "lowers the goal" of political life to increase the chances of its attainment. But liberalism's neglect of excellence is in the long run self-destructive. No regime, not even a liberal one, is mechanically self-perpetuating. Each rests ultimately upon the wisdom and courage of its leaders. In neglecting this, liberalism jeopardises its own survival. Liberalism suffers a further, specific disadvantage in comparison with its totalitarian rivals: it extends to them a tolerance which they do not reciprocate. The collapse of the Weimar republic was confirmation for Strauss of this shortcoming. Churchill demonstrated that only the residually heroic element in liberal democracy could save it from destruction.
How can the levelling tendency of the modern age be counteracted? How can greatness be restored? Unlike many European conservatives, Strauss did not look to the hereditary nobility, a class non-existent in America. His was an aristocracy of spirit, not of rank. Hence the vital importance he attached to education. "Liberal education," he wrote, "is the counterpoison to mass culture, to the corroding effects of mass culture, to its inherent tendency to produce nothing but 'specialists without spirit or vision and voluptuaries without heart.'… Liberal education is the necessary endeavour to found an aristocracy within democratic mass society. Liberal education reminds those members of a mass democracy who have ears to hear, of human greatness."Perhaps, today, being Ivy League should be prejudicial, if not disqualifying, to those seeking positions of trust and power?