The Soldier and the Philosopher
Jeffrey Polet on the thought of Gen. Stanley McChrystal
What does a retired four-star general have to teach us about the life of the mind? More than one might think—though not, perhaps, in the way his publisher would have us believe.
On the latest episode of Acton Line, Jeffrey Polet joins the program to consider the philosophy of Gen. Stanley McChrystal. It is a conversation worth the attention of anyone who has ever wondered whether the word “leadership,” so heavily freighted by the self-help industry, might still be made to carry something more substantial.
McChrystal’s recent writing on character is not the usual leadership-aisle fare at the airport bookstore. It is a genuine meditation on the formation of the soul that draws from classical sources older and deeper than any service manual. That alone sets it apart from most of what passes for reflection on the subject, which tends to reduce the question of how to lead to a handful of techniques, a checklist of traits, or a personal brand to be curated.
Polet, a careful reader of the Western tradition, situates McChrystal within a lineage that stretches back through Aristotle and Aquinas. Character, on this account, is not a private possession or a matter of self-styling but a habit of the heart, forged slowly in the company of others. It is the sort of thing one acquires by imitation, repetition, and the patient correction of those who have walked the road before. It cannot be downloaded, streamed, or otherwise fast-tracked.
One of the most striking themes of the conversation is the necessity but insufficiency of rules. Institutions that try to replace judgment with procedure eventually hollow themselves out. Rules are indispensable and no army, no firm, no parish can operate without them, but they cannot do the work that only prudence can do. Ultimately virtue cannot be outsourced to a compliance department.
Polet points to where McChrystal grapples with this tension, and he explores the uneven results of the general’s thinking through these issues. McChrystal is not a philosopher, and Polet is too honest a reader to pretend otherwise. Yet the attempt is admirable, and it highlights the unique perspective a soldier can bring to these questions. Those who have commanded in extremis know something about the limits of procedure that those of us who have only written about such matters can know only secondhand. The classroom and the command tent are different schools, and the tradition is richer for admitting both.
It is no small thing for a man of McChrystal’s career to sit with the older questions. That he does so, even unevenly, is itself a witness worth considering.
A thoughtful conversation, well worth an hour. Listen to the full episode of Acton Line with Jeff Polet wherever you get your podcasts, or watch on YouTube: