Confucius on Kennedy, Essay Example

America has had forty-three different men serve as President of the United States. Yet for most students writing a paper like this, the choices are more limited. One would have to be something of a presidential scholar to evaluate Millard Fillmore or Rutherford B. Hayes in terms of Confucius’ model of a superior man, and the same could probably be said for most of the others as well. It could be done — one must have some leadership qualities to become a president — but not very easily. What is left are a handful of star presidents to choose from: Washington, Jackson, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Wilson, Kennedy, Reagan. As for Obama, he is definitely a star president, but it is too early to examine his record through the lens of “Confucian philosophy” — a phrase that, applying to that philosophy as rendered in English — surely deserves the ironic quotation marks. For this paper, I have chosen Kennedy because he is still the most personally interesting for many people and who, dying young, yet lived recently enough to fit into the modern American age and so be a counterpoint to the author of these ancient Chinese writings. As different as those two men were, a similarity immediately suggests itself.

Of the three given selections, The Doctrine of the Mean seems to apply to Kennedy most directly. That is because it is really about having a personal style. To be a superior man — a leader — of the Mean one must always act in accordance with one’s personal code. Confucius wrote “The path may not be left for an instant. If it could be left, it would not be the path,” meaning that if it could be left it would not be a personal style, which must not change; and “The superior man embodies the course of the Mean; the mean man acts contrary to the course of the Mean” meaning that the inferior man abandons his style when circumstances compel or permit it (302). I take those two statements to signify — for the purposes of the modern world that Kennedy lived in and we all still live in — that “the Mean” is “the Style” — an internal self-image that matches the public one. For a private person, it cannot be abandoned without internal disharmony. For a politician, it cannot be abandoned without exterior — political — cost. Sometimes that cost has to be borne, but the style — the Mean — must somehow be redeemed afterward or that Mean will be exposed as a front. The superior political man can or will at all cost stay within his Style/Mean where the inferior political man — Kennedy’s political rival Richard Nixon is a possible example — either has no style or violates it too often to have “The Nature” that “heaven has conferred.”

Much has been written about Kennedy’s personal style and the effect it had on Americans, especially the men of his generation (Style). But we can start with his first name, with is formally John, but informally is Jack. Years after Kennedy’s murder, in a televised debate Republican Senator Dan Quayle referred to “Jack Kennedy”. His opponent, Texas Senator Lloyd Benson, replied “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.” The use of “Jack” instead of “John” is a talisman of admiration and closeness. “Jack” has a less formal sound, and Kennedy stressed a lack of formality in his personal and professional life in keeping with that of his generation. By comparison, probably far fewer would want to publicly associate themselves with “Dick Nixon” (although it has been done). “Jack Kennedy” remains a powerful shibboleth for anyone who can get away with saying it. One either can or cannot (and fewer and fewer of us can without sounding pretentious). You are either in the in-crowd or not. Quayle was painfully and publicly blackballed. As Confucius wrote, “We may say therefore that he who is greatly virtuous [who follows their Style/Mean through thick and thin and still succeeds] will be sure to receive the appointment of Heaven” (305). Which is to say, the appointment of eternal admiration.

Part of Kennedy’s mean, style, or creed was the cool dismissal of risk. To Kennedy, looking good was everything: “The admirable amiable prince displayed conspicuously his excelling virtue, adjusting his people, and adjusting his officers. Therefore, he received from Heaven his emoluments of dignity. It protected him [politically], assisted him, decreed him the throne; sending from Heaven these favors, as it were repeatedly (305) . . . Let the states of equilibrium and harmony exist in perfection, and a happy order will prevail throughout heaven and earth, and all things will be nourished and flourish” (302). Kennedy had apparent equilibrium and harmony, and would be the people’s guide. During his presidency, his heaven and earth was called, by some, Camelot, another ancient kingdom.

Of course, this did not protect either John F. Kennedy, or the American people. There was the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in April of 1961, a failure of Kennedy’s administration; the Vienna summit-meeting with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev of June 1961, a personal failure for the president; the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, a Russian Roulette redemption following the Cuban failure; and finally there was Kennedy’s assassination, in 1963.

“Alas! How is the path of the Mean untrodden!” (302).

Works Cited

Confucius. “The Doctrine of the Mean.” Silva, Linda. World Literature Anthology: Volume I. APUS ePress, 2011. 301.

Style. Ed. Renee Jacques. 12 August 2013. 15 August 2013. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/12/john-f-kennedy-style_n_3744169.html>.