The limits of the great men

On the contemporary American right, particularly among young men, the great man theory of history is enjoying a renaissance. Caesar, Napoleon, and even Donald Trump are looked upon with great admiration as men who challenged lethargic systems against staggering odds in pursuit of greatness. For a generation of men who grew up being told that they were privileged oppressors while watching women surpass them on many metrics, the frustration is understandable.

The current education system all too often stifles masculinity, pushing equity and inclusion at the expense of virtue and honor, or even simpler things like rough and tumble play. When this gets paired with lagging economic outcomes and seemingly fewer opportunities to realize one’s grand ambitions (or even to buy a home and start a family), the angst is almost inevitable. The left would do well to engage with these concerns more seriously and drop the smugness that it has shown to young men over the last decade.

And yet, there is something incomplete, and perhaps even contradictory, about how great man theory (especially as practiced by these men) intersects with conservatism, and especially Christian conservatism.

Many of these young men at least identify as Christian, and yet Jesus (nor Peter, John, or any other Biblical figure) rarely comes up when they discuss their heroes. They tend to prefer brash men with illustrious military careers, and often lots of blood on their hands. These men tend to capture many of the classical masculine virtues, and their lives are worth studying, but they should not be the foremost heroes of a Christian man.

We have our hero. Christ can control the weather, cast out demons, and raise the dead. These things are all “cooler” than anything anyone else has ever done, and yet they still pale in comparison to His true mission: to lay down His life so that we can be cleansed of our sin and live with God forever, an opportunity that we do not deserve. Christ is brave, strong, and inspiring, but even more importantly, He is humble, gracious, and loving. As believers, we are called foremost to those latter qualities, and if we neglect them, we are not fulfilling our Christian duties. This does not mean that ambition is inherently bad, but it must be subservient to God’s commands on how we are to live. Too many men on the right have forgotten (or perhaps never been properly taught) this essential teaching. To be clear, this does not mean that a Christian man should be weak or passive. Christ was unafraid of confrontation with the “establishment” of His time, but His anger was always rightly channeled, never driven by ego or grievance. Living a good life does not mean living as Caesar did, it means living as Christ did.

In its very worst forms, neglect of the Christian virtues (and being terminally online) can lead to dabbling in racism and anti-Semitism, and conservative thought leaders should be reckoning with how to remove these elements from the movement before they become more permanently ensconced. But things need not be so pernicious to produce a vapid conservatism. To give one obvious example, a man who holds Donald Trump up as an uncomplicated hero will ring hollow when he advocates for traditional sexual ethics.

The “New Right” has injected energy and activity into a political movement that very much needed it. The Republican Party of 1988-2012 is not coming back, and in many ways that is for the best. It is good for young men to be ambitious and look for meaning outside themselves. The essential task now is to channel this energy correctly. Caesar, Napoleon, and Trump may leave earthly legacies, but ultimately, their achievements will pass away. The only way truly to fulfill one’s quest for purpose is to find it in the unchanging, eternal God. True greatness is not found in conquest, but in serving others, as Christ did—humbling oneself to lift up others. Young men should be encouraged to lead and pursue excellence, but when these (normal and often healthy) desires become detached from faith, they quickly become self-serving, wrathful, and often bloody. The church should welcome these young men, acknowledge their frustrations, and help them tether their ambitions to Christian virtue.

One reason for optimism is that the young men of the right are just that, young. Many of them received woefully inadequate educations and some come from challenging home lives. They should be commended for seeking truth and challenging the absurd frameworks society often pushed on them. Christians must try to help them not only tear down these frameworks, but to build better ones in their place, and instill a more complete sense of virtue into both the conservative movement and society writ large. In Christ we have a superior alternative to Caesar, Napoleon, and Trump. While they may each have some claim to greatness, they lack the moral credibility to be role models for a movement that sustains a culture of life, family, and faith. It is difficult to do in a culture that too often diminishes or misguides young men, but our calling has not changed. Young men on the right, and everyone everywhere, must deny themselves and take up a cross. It will not profit us to gain the whole world if we forfeit our souls.