What is Great?

I watched a few snippets of President Obama's recent State of the Union address, which were broadcast on TV. I perhaps could have read the transcript on the Internet but to be honest I'm not interested. I don't intend to imply any disrespect towards the President but his speeches, like most politicians', regardless of nationality, are usually full of political spin and hype. There's often plenty of aspirational and inspirational stuff, which is unlikely to be achievable and definitely not in the timescale of a presidency. For some reason there is one phrase in Barack Obama's speech that I can't forget, even though it's not unique, that's when he referred to the United States of America as "the greatest nation on earth". What does that mean?

There are differences between American English and my native tongue, English English, but I believe the definitions of Great and therefore Greatest, are the same. The Oxford English Dictionary definition is:

'Much above average in size, intensity, ability, quality, or importance'.

The USA certainly has the largest economy in the world when measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but when that GDP is divided by the size of the population to give GDP per head it slips to number 11 in the world. OK so let's look at some other measures like the Human Development Index (adjusted for inequality), Prison Population per 100,000 population, Emission of Carbon Dioxide and Defence Spending, where the USA's world ratings are 12, 1, 2 and 1, respectively. The Human Development Index adjusted for inequality is a measure of years of schooling, life expectancy and income levels adjusted for inequality in the distribution of health, education and income. It is a measure of the quality of life and you can see the USA has plenty of room for improvement. The other three measures indicate that compared with the rest of the world, the USA has the highest percentage of the population in prison, is the second highest producer of carbon dioxide and has the highest level of defence expenditure. It's not a status that any country should be proud of and the high level of defence spending would probably qualify as the 'Greatest' in the world for military and therefore destructive, capability!

I don't want this blogpost to focus solely on the USA. There is no doubt that the President of the United States of America is an important world leader, Barack Obama and other world leaders should be extremely influential in shaping the planet's future so their perception of 'greatest' is pertinent. There are some real crunchy issues facing the planet at the moment, like poverty, wealth distribution, climate change, energy and food supplies, all of which are interrelated and cannot, therefore, be picked off one-by-one for remedial action. So in my opinion leaders should not be competing for national 'greatness' but working together for global improvement and sustainability. But how?

The problem with any political system, particularly democracy, is the politicians are short-term focussed. Political parties and individuals within the parties, have as their number one priority, re-election. This usually means the extent of any 'vision' is limited to no more that four years and typically one to two years. The issues facing the world today result from actions that were initiated decades ago, indeed sometimes centuries ago. If you don't believe me, think of it from a personal perspective. You are where you are today because of an action initiated by your parents at a time equal to your age plus nine months ago! But you are also where you are today not just because of the actions of your parents but as a consequence of millions (yes millions!) of actions that post-date and pre-date your birth. Life is highly complex and can rarely be modified by simple short-term policies, unless of course those short-term initiatives are compatible with a much longer-term vision. The planet's problems are not going to be solved by any nation's president or prime minister but on the other hand, those leaders who take global issues seriously and initiate appropriate actions to move society in the right direction, even with possible adverse effects on their own political careers, could arguably be described as 'great'. Such great leaders, particularly from the richer nations, could be following a course against their own national interests if, for example, poor under-developed countries benefit at the expense of the developed world, which, for the developed world leaders, could be political suicide.

To conclude, I would argue that the leader of a nation who uses his or her influence to benefit the planet and particularly by addressing some of the aforementioned important issues, i.e. poverty, wealth distribution, climate change, energy and food supplies from a global perspective, qualifies as a great leader, which, in my opinion, is more important than aspiring to (or claiming to) lead a great nation. Indeed, competitions between nations to achieve greatness could be the major impediment to the achievement to global improvement and sustainability - think globally!