Public Intellectuals: Seeing the Stars

Charles Austin Beard, a name now little known outside a select niche of American history scholars, was a controversial giant among American historians in the early 20^th century and himself a salutary lesson on the importance of social context and history. Beard fell from academic grace as historians reassessed his economic interpretations of U.S. Constitutional history, placing them in a much broader milieu of 18^th century politics and culture. Yes, there are academic fads, where ideas gain credence, attract intellectual adherents and acolytes, and then fall from favor as new and better ideas gain traction.

Despite the controversies, Beard was also the early 20^th century embodiment of what some might view as a dying breed – the public intellectual, a scholar who also actively engaged in the public debate. He also wrote popular books, and for most of his career, Beard supported himself almost entirely from book royalties. The nearest analogs today might be Douglas Brinkley or Doris Kearns Goodwin, though my personal nod of respect goes to Robert Caro. Beard's non-interventionist political positions, particularly those placing him at odds with President Franklin Roosevelt's arguments for U.S. engagement in World War II prior to the Pearl Harbor attack, ultimately led to a fall from popular grace.

However, I digress; this little ditty is about neither constitutional history nor Beard's cultural philosophy or denouement, but rather the enduring power of his words. Once asked if he could briefly summarize human history, Beard responded that he could describe all of history in only four sentences:

Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power.
The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small.
The bee fertilizes the flower it robs.
When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

Brief and pithy, the lines speak to the importance of perspective and humility and the brevity of human perspective relative to the arc of history. The first line's wisdom on the dangers of power can be found in, among other places, Sophocles play Antigone. The second line's observation that the reckoning of truth may be slow but is rendered in depth is almost as old, dating from at least the 1st century C.E. The third and fourth emphasize opportunities inherent in almost all experiences, however they may seem at the time.

Almost fifty years ago, I first heard these lines repeated in a rural Arkansas school nestled in the Ozarks. I was thirteen years old, filled with teenaged angst and ennui. Feeling the profundity of the observations, I paused after class to ask the origin of the lines, but sadly, the teacher did not know. Others did – Martin Luther King, Jr used them as the basis of a sermon, which he entitled Four Proverbs.

Today, our society faces complex issues, a truism defining of any age in human history. Resolving complexity is messy and difficult, with much debate and struggle, emotional and intellectual. As the other President Roosevelt (Teddy) sagely noted in his speech Citizenship in a Republic, credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena. Beard knew this well; so did King.

We cannot and should not hide in the academic cloister. We preserve and create knowledge; we transmit it to new generations; and we engage society with the fruits of our labors. That is the holy triumvirate of academic tradition and very definition of a public intellectual – one in the arena.

Fertilize some flowers; look at the stars.