The Immersion Library

Therefore I beg you to get to know this man Joppolo well. We have need of him. He is our future in the world. Neither the eloquence of Churchill nor the humaneness of Roosevelt, no Charter, no four freedoms or fourteen points, no dreamer’s diagram so symmetrical and so faultless on paper, no plan, no hope, no treaty -none of these things can guarantee anything. Only men can guarantee, only the behavior of men under pressure, only our Joppolo.

They ought to require students to read this book in high school. Perhaps they don’t because it defies the kind of faith citizens need to have in their institutions, charters and political promises. I keep asking myself one question. While falling in love with Major Joppolo, I wonder how any society can guarantee placing a Joppolo to lead it? Of course, one cannot make this guarantee. So we fall back on a system, but systems cannot bring the same results as a Joppolo. It seems a deflating cyclical argument leaving us only with luck.

Hersey tells a beautiful story with hints of Hemingway’s style, simple language and realistic metaphors – a great example of how a microchosmic story in a small town can inspire the grand questions of our experience. He blurs the lines between oppressor and liberator by presenting bureaucratic similarities with only philosophical differentiators. But do those differentiators truly trickle down to the administration of a small, insignificant town? Does foreign governance impede freedom, regardless of creed? It seems Hersey argues that to truly achieve prosperity and freedom, one must lead with empathy, service and assimilation rather than dogmatic execution of orders. If an invading force truly desires to liberate, do they have the courage to allow their representatives to serve communities and trust in the outcome? From a romantic perspective, one would answer “Yes” quickly and forcefully. From a realistic perspective, this seems a couragous and risky decision.

Every community, like every person, has a soul. To bring about happiness, either in a community or in oneself, one must resurrect that soul and nurture it fiercely, even when it does not, at first, appear to correlate to measureable results. A leader must trust people to bring about their own results; enable them and serve them. When a leader sees a community as a means to an end, as an engine to results, as opposed to the end itself, that community suffers oppression – American, German, Fascist, Capitalist. It doesn’t matter.

I loved visiting Adano. Though a poor town, I found it rich in humanity. I want to protect it from the corruptions and complexities of this world by lifting it from the earth and moving it to its own universe. I want to clone Joppolo and install him in every city and finally achieve world peace. Alas, this would make me a dictator, a foreign invader. So, again I ask, can we implement any of this? Or do different places and times just get lucky?