Some Literature of Social Reflection

Most students at Harvard know Robert Coles as the professor of the immensely popular General Education 105, "The Literature of Social Reflection." The course catalog describes it as "an examination of selected novels, essays, poems, and autobiographical statements which aim at social scrutiny or at a moral critique of a particular society," and devoted students have been known to swear that "this class will change your life." Is Robert Coles really that good? Well, Coles does have a Pulitzer Prize to his credit, not to mention over 50 books. These are books on writers, philosophers and social activists, as well as compilations of literary essays and some very well known works on the moral and spiritual lives of children. And although he certainly commands a great deal of academic respect (he holds the titles of Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Humanities and James Agee Professor of Social Ethics), one might also consider him to be a public intellectual of sorts-an intellectual authority with a common touch and sympathetic heart.

All these qualifications make his newest book, Lives of Moral Leadership, seem both perfect and frustrating. Perfect because Coles is in a wonderful position of authority, in terms of examining and explaining the qualities of moral leadership that so many people perceive as lacking in America today, and frustrating precisely because Coles never goes beyond the rather obvious statements of how moral leaders make their choices and live their lives. He never gets into risky territory, never tries to deal with the complexity of deciding what morality is or where it comes from. At the most basic level, the general reading public already knows what his point is and agrees with him.

Lives of Moral Leadership consists of essays dealing with the ideas of leadership, morality and, naturally, moral leadership in various contexts. Coles was lucky enough to have been friends or acquaintences with such socially concerned luminaries as Robert Kennedy and Dororthy Day, but his book also makes use of his experiences during the Civil Rights Movement and other episodes of social and political conflict. Coles takes these experiences, along with a few musings on authors like Conrad and Emerson (which would probably fit very will within the curriculum of Gen. Ed. 105) and presents them as a sort of reader on the qualities of moral leadership-not just to lead, but to lead well.

Coles approaches this project in an earnest but informal manner, drawing larger conclusions out of each encounter. As part of a group of doctors working to raise awareness about child malnutrition in the American South in the late 1960s, Coles had the chance to work with and observe Kennedy, the senator from New York, Robert F. Kennedy '48. What impressed Coles so much about Kennedy was not just his genuine interest and concern for the issue, but his determination to be both politically pragmatic and morally just. There are also chapters covering a wide variety of efforts and lives of moral leadership. We get an interview-essay chapter on Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, but we also hear the story of a New Orleans elementary school teacher trying to discuss the moral implications of the Civil Rights struggle at the very height of that movement. Lives of Moral Leadership is full of large and small experiences, but they all have similar messages on the value and the difficulty of moral leadership.

It is obvious that Coles cares very deeply about these issues, and his conclusions are insightful, even if they are not exactly earth-shattering. The volume is relatively easy to read; it is harder to put it all together-that is, to come away with more than a vague impression that the qualities of moral leadership include the need to know both what is right and how to lead. This is not because Coles's argument is complex, but rather because the book is not very focused. It is a survey of moral leadership through various episodes and stories. The stories themselves are, for the most part, valuable on their own, and the topic of moral leadership is obviously one that receives a great deal of discussion and debate, especially, as Coles points out, in the context of this year's presidential election. And yet at first glance, Lives of Moral Leadership is not very weighty or academically substantive. Each of the different chapters deals with a different story, but in the end (and this is a somewhat reductionist conclusion) it's all the same.

In reading Coles's stories about morally brave and conscientious people, there is the temptation to react with cynicism. One might see the whole endeavor as ultimately futile-after all, it's very easy to talk about moral leadership and bemoan its absence (or if not its absence, its weakness) in contemporary American politics, but honestly, what can be done? Or perhaps all these examples of moral leadership just seem like a slightly more sophisticated version of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

But by no means has Coles fallen short of the mark. It is, I will admit, somewhat ridiculous to criticize him for failing to do something he never intended to do. Lives of Moral Leadership was intended to inspire, to provoke discussion and self-examination more than anything else. And on that count, it succeeds in a subtle but undeniable way-not by raising an intellectual problem, but by encouraging that rare habit of introspection.

In some ways Lives of Moral Leadership goes beyond the simplistic discussion its language might sometimes suggest. Reading about moral leadership can bring about a serious consideration of those ideas on the part of the reader. And perhaps this is the whole point. Coles wrote the book for a general audience, and it is safe to assume that he wanted it to inform and engage the larger American public in this ongoing discussion of moral leadership.

This is not a book that Harvard undergraduates are going to buy in large or even modest quantities. We are more inclined to discuss moral leadership as an abstraction in section than as a topic of deep personal interest. The easiset way to read Coles's book is as a primer on the qualities of moral leadership, as a guide to what we have seen and looked for in moral leaders. This might also be the least appealing way to read it, as far as college students are concerned; we think we are too worldly and intelligent for such romantic and familiar conceptions. Maybe we are, and maybe we aren't. But we are not above taking a moment to pause and ask whether we have what it takes to be a moral leader, and to wonder if we will recognize and act during those moments that demand our moral leadership. In some ways, this question is far more important than any intellectual problem we could hope to encounter during our time at college.

LIVES OF MORAL LEADERSHIP

by

Robert Coles

Random House

247 pp., $24

by

Robert Coles

Random House

247 pp., $24