My good friend from college Mark Kleiman asks that question in this post at Same Facts, The Reality-Based Community. He was in part inspired to the post by having dinner with Adam Michnik, one of the central figures in the overthrow of Communism in Poland, and thus a hero of Mark's younger days. Michnik asked Mark and his other dinner companion, Andy Sabl, that question. Mark writes
I took this to mean both "moral authority you are prepared to accept" and "enough public standing to be an actual force."
In his own musings on the question, Mark found himself stymied, coming up with only one name, Barack Obama. He asked his readers their responses, which I will share below the fold, as I also share my reaction to the question and invite yours as well.
As I post this sitting in a Starbucks, there are 24 comments to Mark's post. There are various names offered, sometimes with qualifications, sometimes with others responding back. The issue of public standing is seen as separate by some - thus one could note that Rush Limbaugh has the standing and may be looked to by some as a moral authority even as those reading these words here would almost certainly agree that he lacks morals.
One sees the name of Ralph Nader, but Mark himself responds by noting
Ralph Nader’s wilful delivery of the Presidency to a dangerous lunatic in 2000 wrecked any moral authority he might have had. Having interacted with various parts of the Public Citizen empire in the 1970s, I’ve always considered Nader a scoundrel – pretty much a pseudo-left version of a televangelist – but that was pretty much a minority view until 2000.
There is pushback against Mark's nomination of Obama, with one commenter noting things like the ongoing strikes in Afghanistan still killing large numbers of civilians.
Incidentally, that person points at people like Elisabeth Warren and Brooksley Born, in the process of first noting
If public standing is required, then it is not surprising that present day America comes up short in the moral authority department. Indeed, moral authority and public standing come close to being mutually exclusive. Once one questions the status quo from a moral basis the powers-that-be do their best to marginalize the questioner, precisely to deny him/her a wider audience. Think of congress members like Barbara Lee.
Among the other names mentioned are Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, Paul Krugman, Oprah Winfrey, Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Pete Seeger, Bob Moses, George Clooney, and David Letterman. You will note the absence of any Republican elected official, present or former.
I'm not sure I would fully accept Mark's two-part definition. Even within that framework, I think many of the names offered are people who might have the public standing, but I wonder about the evidence that they are prepared to act, to speak on a moral basis. Of those names offered, I think Carter and Gore might come closest to Mark's definition if one also considers a track record of speaking out on matters of moral concern, broadly defined.
I think that sometimes the clearest moral voices will not come from those who hold - or have held - high public office. Perhaps a former office holder might feel free to speak out forcefully, which is why I include Nobel Peace Laureates Carter and Clinton, but because of their previous political roles, there will inevitably be pushback from previous political opponents, and those who take an opposing position on the issues propounded will often attempt to use that former political role in an attempt to devalue the current moral advocacy.
While it would be nice that lour elected officials advocate forcefully on matters of moral concerns, the demands of our current political system often make that difficult, if not impossible, to sustain. Thus some may have had hopes for more moral advocacy from President Obama, but no matter how inclined he may be in that direction, he has the burdens of his office, and as of yet has not found a sure-footed way to consistently speak with moral authority.
I also think that we cannot expect to expect someone to be able to constantly speak in the fashion Mark describes. As I look back over 60+ years of life, I would say that the person who comes closest in public life to what he seeks would be Martin Luther King Jr. Of course, too often we sanitize his moral advocacy, forgetting his fierce opposition to Vietnam, his willingness to speak out on matters of economics beyond those of race. The record is that when he went beyond the matters of race his public standing was somewhat diminished: he was criticized or ignored.
Thus I think rather than expecting consistent moral leadership from above, we need to look to those occasions when someone not normally in positions of authority are able to offer clear statements. Thus Chesley Sullenberger become an iconic figure, and was able to at least remind people of the positive force of a person otherwise not on our radar to speak to our concerns. Still, while he was a union activist among pilots, Captain Sullenberger chose not to use his moment in the spotlight to speak to the kinds of broader concerns I believe lie beyind Adam Michnik's question.
And when I look back to the Civil Rights Era, I think the force it carried was not so much of leaders like King and the others, but because of vast commitment of otherwise ordinary folk, black and white, towards a matter of moral concern. King and others became iconic representations, upon whom the media could focus, but the real impact came from thousands upon thousands of others, some of whose names we know - Rosa Parks; Violet Liuzzo; Fannie Lou Hamer; James Reeb; Cheney, Schwerner and Goodman; - and many thousands more whose names we do not know or have forgotten. They believed strongly enough to risk life and body, education and career.
Sometimes it was a small thing, like the superb running back Gale Sayers irritating the athletic department at Kansas for his commitment to civil rights. Sometimes the person starts as ordinary and becomes the one with "enough public standing" - the events that catapulted Michnik to prominence also made an international figure of a man who had been a shipyard electrician, and became the face and voice of Solidarity, Lech Walesa.
So I am interested in who you might mention, and will read what you offer in your advocacy on their behalf. But I will look in another direction.
Right now the first person who comes to mind is a quiet 10th grader in one of my AP Government classes. A___ is one of two students who will join me in two weeks at a dental fair in Northern Virginia. I let students apply for the opportunity, and they had to offer explanations of why. Let me tell you about A___.
When he was 5 he used to see a homeless man around his neighborhood. He worried about the cold. When the man no longer appeared, he asked his parents what had happened. They did not know. He challenged them, could not they have done something to take care of the man?
Since then he has always found time to devote himself to those less well-off. His church now has a warming center, so that on cold nights the homeless have a place of some comfort. He volunteers there regularly. He has been doing so for several years. He is not yet 16.
A___ does not speak out with words all that often. But he speaks with a thunderous voice by his actions.
I also think of some of the members of this community. I fear starting to mention people because I cannot mention all. TexMex and the shelter boxes for Haiti. Our community quilts for those facing medical issues. Those are but two examples I could mention.
What is the importance of having people with moral authority? I would suggest it is to remind us of what is before us, things within our power to address, at lest in part, sometimes thereby forcing those in positions of official leadership to act. IT is someone who by words AND ACTIONS challenges us to leave our own comfort zone, to address the unmet needs of others, to be willing to say NO to something that is wrong, even knowing that we may thereby pay a price.
A leader can have moral authority. I wish more were willing to take that path. I think one could justifiably offer criticism at this President this much: he came into office with the possibility of serving as an entirely different kind of president, one who would function as a figure of moral authority. But I would be tempered even in offering that criticism because I do not think that is how he ever saw his role. He saw himself as a teacher, as a voice for the aspirations of others, but also a pragmatist who has a stronger sense of wanting to find a way to bring people together in a common effort than to challenge people the way Michnik's question would seem to suggest.
So ultimately I would respond to Michnik and Kleiman in a fashion they might not expect. I think our task is not to be looking for others to be those to model moral authority. Rather our task is to examine ourselves, to see how in our words and actions we can begin to become figures of moral authority, first for ourselves, and then for anyone who cares to observe, to think how what they perceive in us can become something possible then actual for them.
We also need to remember this: we vary greatly in what we consider moral. There are those willing to risk life and limb on behalf of causes we abhor. They will claim for themselves moral authority, and there will be others who will agree with them.
So how do I answer the question, Who in America has Moral Authority? Potentially we all do, and if we wish to see that in our leaders, perhaps we will have to teach them by exemplifying it ourselves, by acknowledging it wherever we encounter it, as I encountered it in a 15 year old young man in one of my classes.
What about you?
Peace.