This is why the greatness talk is not only divisive and obfuscatory but also sometimes dangerous. One antidote to ennui is war. In a recent history of American foreign policy, “The Icarus Syndrome”, Peter Beinart draws a comparison between the Kennedy administration and that of George W. Bush. Kennedy was ardent for glory and the cold war provided the arena. In the eyes of some American conservatives, the war against al-Qaeda offered a similar opportunity to answer the call of greatness. In both cases, Mr Beinart argues, the desire to do great deeds and not simply what was necessary led to episodes of overreach and disappointment.
Asking for the moon
When war loses its capacity to exhilarate, seekers after national greatness need something else. Re-enter Mr Krauthammer, fulminating this time against Mr Obama’s sensible decision to downsize the plan he inherited from Mr Bush for America to return to the moon by 2020, and thence to Mars. Would returning to the moon and heading for Mars reconnect Americans with their greatness? Many might think the idea batty in present circumstances. But that, of course, is the whole trouble when greatness, undefined, is made into an objective in its own right.
In 1997 David Brooks, writing then for the Weekly Standard and now at the New York Times, wrote an essay called “A Return to National Greatness”, complaining that America had abandoned high public aspiration and become preoccupied with “the narrower concerns of private life”. It almost doesn’t matter what great task government sets for itself, Mr Brooks said, “as long as it does some tangible thing with energy and effectiveness”.
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