Not long ago, there was an interesting moment on the campaign trail in Iowa when Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson admitted that he is “not particularly interested in running for president…” further saying,

“I am not consumed by personal ambition. I will not be devastated if I don’t do it.”

“I’m offering myself up. I’m saying that I have the background and capability and the concern to do this.”

“I like to say that I’m only consumed by very, very few things and politics is not one of them… if people really want in their president a super type-A personality, someone who has gotten up every morning and gone to bed every night thinking about for years how they could achieve presidency of the United States, someone who could look you straight in the eye and say they enjoy every minute of campaigning — I ain’t that guy.”

“Nowadays, it’s all about fire in the belly. I’m not sure in the world we live in today it’s a terribly good thing that a president has too much fire in his belly.”

“I’m not consumed by this process. I’m not consumed with the notion of being president. I’m simply saying I’m willing to do what’s necessary to achieve it if I’m in synch with the people and if the people want me or somebody like me.”

While those comments seem rather unorthodox, and I doubt they have helped boost his campaign in any way, that is not why I draw attention to them. I was reading the Allegory of the Cave from Plato’s Republic last week, and I wondered if perhaps Thompson had been reading up on Plato himself. At the very end of that section there is the following exchange between Socrates and Glaucon,

Socrates: You must contrive for your future rulers another and a better life than that of a ruler, and then you may have a well-ordered State; for only in the State which offers this, will they rule who are truly rich, not in silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom, which are the true blessings of life. Whereas if they go to the administration of public affairs, poor and hungering after the’ own private advantage, thinking that hence they are to snatch the chief good, order there can never be; for they will be fighting about office, and the civil and domestic broils which thus arise will be the ruin of the rulers themselves and of the whole State.

Glaucon: Most true, he replied.

Socrates: And the only life which looks down upon the life of political ambition is that of true philosophy. Do you know of any other?

Glaucon: Indeed, I do not, he said.

Socrates: And those who govern ought not to be lovers of the task? For, if they are, there will be rival lovers, and they will fight.

Glaucon: No question.

Socrates: Who then are those whom we shall compel to be guardians? Surely they will be the men who are wisest about affairs of State, and by whom the State is best administered, and who at the same time have other honors and another and a better life than that of politics?

Glaucon: They are the men, and I will choose them, he replied.

This is probably just a lucky coincidence, or maybe Thompson was attempting to embody Plato’s ideal sacrificial statesman. It is a rather interesting connection either way. But, regardless, I highly doubt such talk that downplays or devalues personal ambition and achievement at all is likely to go over very well with the majority of Americans whose culture has shaped them into a persistent habit of pushing, praising and dreaming about such things for so long. Obama has dreamed of being president since kindergarten after all, right?

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