On Great Hearts

Robert Ludlum, in The Janson Directive, has an interesting take on greatness.  It combines great skill with great virtue.  However, I wonder if it is realistic from the standpoint of human nature.  We are all sinners in need of grace.  Indeed, that seems to be the point of Ludlum's novel, but from a more cynical perspective and fully taking into account human nature.

Ludlum does a great job of analyzing the topic from different angles.  The book draws similarities between the battles in the boardroom and the battles on the battlefield.  It is quite the study in contrasts.  Without giving away the plot of the novel, consider the following in terms of greatness.  In doing so, consider how Ludlum uses this in comparison to others with less skill or different intentions.  To me, he's making a point.   Maybe I'm wrong.  (Note: the order of the content quoted, below, is intentional.)

Chapter 12 describes perceived virtue in someone who accomplished much but tackled problems no one else had the influence to tackle.

Where humans have been tearing one another apart, he seemed to belong to some race that had learned, finally, to reconcile the brain and the heart, keenness and kindness.  He wasn't just a numbers whiz--he understood people, cared for people.  I believe the same sixth sense that allowed him to see which way the currency markets would go--to anticipate the tides of human greed--is also what allowed him to see precisely what sort of social interventions would truly matter on this planet.  But if you ask why he threw himself at these problems everyone else regarded as hopeless, you have to put reason to one side.  Great minds are rare--great hearts rarer still.  And this was ultimately a matter of the heart. 

Chapter 36 describes a different person with equally great skill but a pragmatic approach to virtue that skirts the edge of principle.  I wonder whether the same skill set could be employed with a less arbitrary approach to principle.

. . . after decades spent within the U.N. bureaucracy, deliberation and consultation were second nature to him.  His diplomatic skills were most fully engaged in reconciling conflicts among the U.N. divisions themselves--calming hostilities between the Department of Peacekeeping-Operations and the Humanitarian Affairs people, preventing resistance from forming among frontline workers and their superiors in the head offices.  He knew the thousand ways that the bureaucrats could stall executive decisions, for in his long career he himself had had occasion to make use of such techniques.  The methods of bureaucratic infighting were as advanced and as sophisticated as the techniques of aggression on the world's battlefields.  It was a tribute to his own success on the internal battlefields that he had risen as far and as fast as he had.  Moreover, the bureaucratic battle was truly won only when those you defeated where led to imagine that they had, in some way, been victorious.  

Being the secretary-general of the United Nations, Zinsou had decided, was like conducting an orchestra of soloists.  The task seemed impossible, and yet it could be done.  When he was in good form, Zinsou could lead a conflict-riven committee to a consensus position that he had planned out before the meeting had begun.  His own preferences were masked; he would appear sympathetic to positions he secretly found unacceptable.  He would play off the preexisting tensions among the assembled deputy special representatives and high commissioners; subtly lead people into temporary coalitions against detested rivals; guide the discussion through ricochets and clashes, like a pool shark bringing about a complex sequence of carefully planned collisions by a well-aimed cue ball.  And at the end, when the committee had worked its way around to the very position he had meant them to reach, he would, with a sigh of resignation and a display of concessive largess, say that the others in the room had talked him around to their point of view.  There were bureaucratic players whose ego demanded that they be seen to have won.  But true power belonged to those who wanted to win actuality, regardless of appearances.  A number of people still accepted Zinsou's soft-spoken and courteous demeanor at face value and did not recognize the forceful nature of his leadership.  They were losers who imagined themselves winners.  Some of those who supported Zinsou did so because they believed they could control him.  Others, the smarter ones, supported him because they knew he would be the most effective leader that the U.N. had known for decades, and they knew that the U.N. was in desperate need for such leadership.  

Or perhaps greatness, has more to do with intent or the lack thereof based on worldview.  In Chapter 18, Ludlum describes the difference between terrorism and state-sanctioned violence from the West, and highlights another aspect of diplomacy and street-smarts.

Oddly low-key in his approach, he played it straight. When Cooper diverted the conversation to the inequities of the West, Janson, as a trained political scientist, was happy to follow him.  Rather than jeering at his politics, Janson was happy to concede that there was much to criticize in the Western democracies--but then rejected the dehumanizing simplifications of the terrorists in direct, hard-hitting language.  Our society betrays humanity whenever it doesn't live up to its own expressed ideals.  And the world your friends wish to create?  It belongs to humanity whenever it does live up to its expressed ideals.  Was the choice so hard?  

Ludlum, in The Janson Directive, also addresses related aspects of human nature, such as, the impact of conscience on actions; the human tendency to exalt others as heroes whether or not those people are worth adulation; the impact when those people we exalt let us down; what occurs when expediency exceeds virtue; how far people can go to establish a ruse; and the importance of honesty, integrity and character in building relationships (believing in the relationship itself and having something to stand on because of the relationship) and how those relationships can be thwarted or turn out to be abusive when that turns out not to be the case.

The book often returns to describing self-recrimination and what could be called a road to redemption accompanied by internal human frailty.  Of interest is Ludlum's description of a hawk that masks itself as a songbird to fool its prey.  One of the most devastating scenarios in the book involves a woman who has lost all reason to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Aside from what I see as Ludlum's mastery at development of characters, one might wonder whether any of this is true to life -- it's a novel after all.  In the initial chapters of Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the List that Led to Vietnam, H. R. McMaster (author) describes the effect of lies and deception in the Kennedy administration that led to increased American involvement in Vietnam leading up to the Johnson administration.  It's nuts.

So what is greatness or greatness of heart in a world that often lets us down and where we often let ourselves down?  Is it inextricably also linked to accomplishment and striving for accomplishment?

Ludlum seems to conclude that this greatness of heart is is in short supply . . . and maybe he's right.  Ludlum seems to point to the continued need for justice and conscience in combat situations; the need for checks on the abuse and potential abuse of power - even in the service of good intentions, because power does corrupt as John Adams and others are quoted as saying; and the need for individual love for and by people (in return), along with healthy relationships . . . regardless how violent the individuals' skills.  Ludlum points to healthy relationships as a source of hope --- throughout.

In the end, perhaps greatness of heart and its relationship with accomplishment is a matter of shrewdness from a Biblical perspective (Matthew 10:16).  Can great things ever be accomplished without it?  It's a valid question.  It's a question The Janson Directive, perhaps inadvertently, seeks to address.

Matthew 10:16 (NASB), states, "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves." There are varied opinions on what this verse means, but perhaps the best interpretation of its meaning would be the life of the one who said it: see the life of Jesus in the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).  Seeing Jesus as wholly innocent and harmless but not as wise and shrewd is missing the point.  He was both.  He was no shrinking violet, and was well aware of when others were out to get Him.  Sometimes He baited others Himself to make a point.  Yet He lived the only wholly innocent life in history and loved the world so much that He laid down His life for our sins. It's why He came.

The Ludlum book certainly speaks to the importance of being shrewd.

There is more that can be tied in from a biblical perspective.

This same Jesus said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them.  It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." (Matthew 20:25-28 NASB).

The biblical book of Proverbs includes contrasts of the foolish and the naive in contrast to the wise and those of understanding, knowledge and prudence; and Proverbs also contrasts laziness to diligence and discipline when it comes to power; and describes the importance of honesty, character, integrity, being a faithful witness, and a word well spoken, in contrast to rash lips, being a false witness, concealed love and concealed hatred, and being a schemer.

In a different vein, the Apostle Paul describes false teachers as follows (II Corinthians 11:13-15, NASB): "For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.  No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.  Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds."

The closing statements in 2 Peter include, "You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

Perhaps, in it's own way, Ludlum's The Janson Directive was intended to shed light on these things.

There is one more parallel that can be drawn in terms of greatness of heart and its relation to accomplishment.  In Chapter 12, Ludlum describes "just war" in terms of pursuit of the ideal while confronting reality: ". . . about the "just war," about the interplay of realism and idealism in state-sanctioned violence." As stated, Ludlum seems to conclude that this greatness of heart is in short supply . . . and the Bible seems to support this.  Yet, biblically, if we are being renewed on the inside to be more like Jesus, as the Scripture says, the life of the Christian should demonstrate that.  Titus 3:1-8, states,

Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed, to malign no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing every consideration for all men.  For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.  But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.  This is a trustworthy statement; and concerning these things I want you to speak confidently, so that those who have believed God will be careful to engage in good deeds.  These things are good and profitable for men.  

So in final analysis, maybe Ludlum's focus on recrimination and conscience in the main character's journey is a good thing.  Maybe the Apostle Paul is right in saying in the book of Philippians 3, ". . . but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."  Maybe Paul's reminder in Titus 3 is necessary.