The Schock factor

The ancient Athenians would ostracize a citizen who was dangerously preeminent in ability. Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., who resigned last week under the weight of financial scandal and an ethics investigation, was dangerous.

Schock, 33, has always been a young man in a hurry, always the highest achiever and the youngest to do it. He started his first business in the fifth grade providing database management for a Peoria bookstore chain. At age 12, he was trading stocks online. In middle school he used six phone lines and 13 credit cards to buy event tickets for a licensed ticket broker. A few months out of high school he was elected to a local school board out of annoyance at having to spend a full four years on his diploma. He completed a Bachelor of Science degree in finance in just two years while making $230,000 in real estate deals.

Thomas Jefferson had people like Schock in mind when he wrote to John Adams about how a democratic government depends on its success through “a natural aristocracy among men” founded on “virtue and talents.” In elections, Jefferson continued, we try to distinguish “the aristoi from the pseudo-aristoi,” investing the one with the public trust and rejecting the other.

But Schock has a taste for the high life beyond what his congressional salary could sustain. So despite his King Midas ability to turn opportunity into personal wealth, it seems he freely defrauded the public treasury and misdirected campaign funds: $40,000 of private jet travel on donor aircraft, mileage expenses overbilled by 90,000 miles, shady real estate deals with donors. The list is long. It was the $40,000 Downton Abbey–themed office redecoration that drew attention and press investigation.

Aaron Schock is an interesting study in ability far outstripping wisdom.

Consider his education. He raced to get his undergraduate degree out of the way in two years. It apparently was just a degree to him, not an education that requires thoughtful reflection, and thus time. You can’t make wine in a weekend. Someone of his ambition and skill should have been more ambitious with his soul, more eager for the wisdom required for the power he sought. Young King Solomon petitioned the Lord: “Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil” (1 Kings 3:9, ESV). David’s son was keenly aware that the task of national government dwarfs even the giants among us. There’s a reason that ancient kings had to present themselves to their peoples as gods.

Schock reads 30 magazines a month. This reflects his hurry through high school and college. By contrast, if he, for example, had earnestly devoured four years of politics, philosophy, and economics at The King’s College, where I teach, he would have prepped for office by studying the Bible, Aristotle’s Politics, and The Federalist Papers. He would be sobered by the moral challenge and daunting limitations of statesmanship in a fallen world.

Aaron Schock is a reminder to the political right that being pro-business is not enough to qualify as a good choice for elective office. He reminds the left that a candidate who sees him- or herself as more than human and impatient with ordinary people and their standards of accountability is an impending political disaster.