4/18/24
Abraham Lincoln’s self fulfilling prophecy.
In Lincoln’s Lyceum Address, he gives an outline of America’s state using powerful illustrations
Among these is a description of “Towering geniuses,” men and women who “thirst and burn for distinction.” Whether or not it was intentional, he connected this idea to what will be his legacy, saying (bolded relevant part, felt sad to not include the rest of this incredible paragraph):
“That our government should have been maintained in its original form from its establishment until now, is not much to be wondered at. It had many props to support it through that period, which now are decayed, and crumbled away. Through that period, it was felt by all, to be an undecided experiment; now, it is understood to be a successful one.--Then, all that sought celebrity and fame, and distinction, expected to find them in the success of that experiment. Their all was staked upon it:-- their destiny was inseparably linked with it. Their ambition aspired to display before an admiring world, a practical demonstration of the truth of a proposition, which had hitherto been considered, at best no better, than problematical; namely, the capability of a people to govern themselves. If they succeeded, they were to be immortalized; their names were to be transferred to counties and cities, and rivers and mountains; and to be revered and sung, and toasted through all time. If they failed, they were to be called knaves and fools, and fanatics for a fleeting hour; then to sink and be forgotten. They succeeded. The experiment is successful; and thousands have won their deathless names in making it so. But the game is caught; and I believe it is true, that with the catching, end the pleasures of the chase. This field of glory is harvested, and the crop is already appropriated. But new reapers will arise, and they, too, will seek a field. It is to deny, what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And, when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion, as others have so done before them. The question then, is, can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly it cannot. Many great and good men sufficiently qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found, whose ambition would inspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle. What! think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon?--Never! Towering genius distains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.--It sees no distinction in adding story to story, upon the monuments of fame, erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving freemen. Is it unreasonable then to expect, that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time, spring up among us? And when such a one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs.”
The excerpt sits at the “Man in the arena” speech & “Going into the woods to live deliberately” part of Walden level of inspiration for me.
Link to transcript of speech. It came on my radar through Peter Thiel’s interview on Tyler Cowen’s pod.
Connected Idea: Lyceums
Outside of being the name of the school started by Aristotle, Lyceums were a hallmark of 19th century American intellectual life. Their purpose is hosting philosophical discussions. Started in 1826 by Josiah Holbrook, they spread rapidly across the US with 100s of instances existing by 1830. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Susan B Anthony, Henry David Thoreau, Abraham Lincoln, and the like used these forums to spread their ideas. Important discourse around topics like slavery occurred in these meetings that would go on to shape the formation of the United States.
As American institutions lose their vitality and individuals fill the resulting space with apps, consumer communities, products, and politics, I am always interested in how institutions can be remade. It seems that the introduction of new institutions is not as hard as it seems. Start small and make it copy-able. Use information spreading technology and forums to spread the ideas. Make it easier to deploy locally. Simple stuff.
I ache for a space like a Lyceum - and have created multiple similar spaces in my life among friends. The thinkers and artists of the world need to interface with each other to be refined. I think of Franklin’s Junto club (which was the launchpad for UPenn, the first lending library, & the Pennsylvania hospital - originally just a cognitively diverse group of people that talked ideas), Tolkien and Lewis’ Inklings, Worhol’s Factory, Keynes and Woolf’s Bloomsbury Group, Smith and Burke’s “The Club,” Pope and Swift’s Scriblerus Club, among many others.
I’d like a group like this in my next ten years that are dedicated to similar things, but meaningfully diverse.
Reminds me of Paul Graham’s thoughts on cities:
Does anyone who wants to do great work have to live in a great city? No; all great cities inspire some sort of ambition, but they aren't the only places that do. For some kinds of work, all you need is a handful of talented colleagues.
What cities provide is an audience, and a funnel for peers. These aren't so critical in something like math or physics, where no audience matters except your peers, and judging ability is sufficiently straightforward that hiring and admissions committees can do it reliably. In a field like math or physics all you need is a department with the right colleagues in it. It could be anywhere — in Los Alamos, New Mexico, for example.
It's in fields like the arts or writing or technology that the larger environment matters. In these the best practitioners aren't conveniently collected in a few top university departments and research labs — partly because talent is harder to judge, and partly because people pay for these things, so one doesn't need to rely on teaching or research funding to support oneself. It's in these more chaotic fields that it helps most to be in a great city: you need the encouragement of feeling that people around you care about the kind of work you do, and since you have to find peers for yourself, you need the much larger intake mechanism of a great city.
You don't have to live in a great city your whole life to benefit from it. The critical years seem to be the early and middle ones of your career. Clearly you don't have to grow up in a great city. Nor does it seem to matter if you go to college in one. To most college students a world of a few thousand people seems big enough. Plus in college you don't yet have to face the hardest kind of work — discovering new problems to solve.
It's when you move on to the next and much harder step that it helps most to be in a place where you can find peers and encouragement. You seem to be able to leave, if you want, once you've found both. The Impressionists show the typical pattern: they were born all over France (Pissarro was born in the Carribbean) and died all over France, but what defined them were the years they spent together in Paris.
Excerpt from Cities and Ambition. Also worth reading - Determination.
12,000 get baptized in one day in France, breaking records.
Many of the baptizees had no religious/catholic upbringing. People are thirsty for meaning in secular societies.