The Power of the Postive Example; L.W. Reed

Those who labor and study in our centers of learning must be made of stronger stuff than that. If they are not, the prospects for a free, virtuous, and compassionate society as a whole are slim. We shouldjudge ideas as we should judge the people who bring them to the marketplace-on their merits. The thing I have always found re freshing about the traditional academic en vironment isthe premium it places on think ing. True thinkers can disagree without being disagreeable. By nature, they reject the thought police. Graduates, you are about to step into a This month's column is an adaptation of the commencement address delivered on May 7, 1994, by Lawrence W. Reed to an audience of 6,000 at Central Michigan University (CMU) in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Dr. Reed, a newly elected trustee of FEE, is an economist and author and President ofthe Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland, Michigan. CMU be stowed on him an honorary doctorate during the graduation ceremonies.

by Lawrence W. Reed world you will shape for years to come. I know it's customary, maybe even hack neyed, for commencement speakers to·say at least a dozen times in their address: "You are the future." We all know that. What I would like to prompt you to think about is, How do you want to shape that future? How do you want your influence to be expressed? I would like each of you to close. your eyes for just a few seconds and think of one or two people who have motivated you, encouraged you, spurred you on.... Ask yourself, was it because of what they said, or what they did?; how they talked, or how they behaved? My guess is that for most of you what those people did and how they behaved-in other words, the example they were (or are) for you-has had the more lasting and meaningful impact. CertainlY, no one is inspired in a positive way by the hypocrite or by the unprincipled. Paraphrasing Emer son, "What you are speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you're saying."

If you reflect further, I believe you will agree with me that each of us is inspired far more by the power of positive example than by command or threats. This is not to say that those who have wielded great power at the point of a gun have not had profound impact. But doesn't it mean so much more to us to earn the respect of others as opposed to commanding it? How much have we really won, if others pay attention not because they want to but because they have to? 413 414 THE FREEMAN • AUGUST 1994 I can think of so many things I wish more people would do. I wish they would value education more highly and read to their children. I wish they would show more concern for those around them in need and do something about it. I wish they would work harder at being the very best at what ever they've chosen as their life's work. I wish they would take more seriously the responsibilities of being free citizens in a democratic society. I wish they would show more respect for the lives and property of others. I wish they would be better neigh bors, more caring friends, more honest pol iticians, more responsible business associ ates.

I suppose we could devise all sorts of laws that would attempt to coerce more people in these directions and that would penalize them if they failed to comply. But that approach, frankly, leaves me with a feeling of hollowness. I don't want a society in which people do the right thing just because they have tO,when they really don't want to. And I believe strongly that the most effec tive teaching method-and at the same time, sadly, the most underappreciated teaching method-is the power of positive example. It isn't a quick fix, it doesn't promise instant gratification, but in the long run, it makes all the difference in the world. Forcing a person to go to church doesn't make him religious any more than forcing him to stand in a garage makes him a car. You don't make a person truly loyal by forbidding disagreement. You don't make a person charitable by robbing him at gun point and spending his money on good things.

The test of a true leader, it's often been noted, is not how many people you can coerce into submission or intimidate into silence, but how far others will go to follow you because they are attracted to your mission of their own free will. The attraction is the power of your example. The late Leonard Read, founder of The Foundation for Economic Education, was fond of relating a story which I would like to paraphrase here and apply to myself: I'm terrible at golf, but I golf anyway. When I show up at the course, not surprisingly, no throngs appear. No one watches me to see how it's done. But let a Palmer or a Nicklaus or a Watson or a Trevino show up, and instantly the crowds gather, seeking his tutelage. The British statesman Edmund Burke once said, "Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other. " I especially like the way Mark Twain said it, "Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example."

I am sure that no one here is entirely happy with the world the way it is. To some extent, all of us are would-be reformers of the world, whatever our personal philosoph ical inclinations may be. What we some times forget in our haste to reform the world is that we must first reform ourselves, one at a time, and none of us has yet done all we can in that regard. We chronically underes timate how much influence for good we can be by simply being better individuals-not pontificating about doing good, but actually being good-and doing it with our own resources, not someone else's-living it, serving as an inspiration for others. By underestimating our ability to shape the future of society by shaping ourselves first, we sometimes meddle in the lives of others while allowing our own to fall into disrepair. In recent years, we have been treated to a great deal of public moralizing from some who have postured as our self-appointed moral authorities. But moralizing and mor als are two different things and sometimes are not found in the same person. Individ uals who preach about the morals of the rest of us while living their own lives to the very standards they prescribe do certainly exist, but I suspect that the greatest influence for good comes from those quiet folks who make morals, not moralizing, their vocation.

An item from a newspaper caught my eye some years ago because it made this very point. The story came from the little town of Conyers, Georgia. When school officials there discovered that one of their basketball players who had played 45 seconds in the first of the school's five post-season games had actually been scholastically ineligible, they returned the state championship trophy the school team had won a few weeks before. If they had simply kept quiet, prob ably no one else ever would have known about it and the school could have retained the trophy. The really amazing thing was that the team and the town, dejected though they were, rallied behind the school's decision. The coach was quoted as saying, "We didn't know he was ineligible at the time . . . but you've got to do what's honest and right and what the rules say. I told my team that people forget the scores of the games; they don't ever forget what you're made of."