Much has been said about Jimmy Carter in the outpouring of grief that came with the announcement of his death on Dec. 29, 2024 at the age of 100. Most striking is the overwhelming consensus that the 39th president of the United States was so rare in character.
The primary lesson we should take from President Carter's life is not that he should be celebrated for standing so far apart from others in how he aligned his faith and his values with how he lived. It is that we should wonder why he is so very unusual in the first place.
Carter biographer Jonathan Alter reminds us of the president's quiet brilliance. "He was the first American president since Thomas Jefferson who could reasonably claim to be a Renaissance Man or at least a world-class autodidact," he wrote. "At various times in his life, he acquired the skills of a farmer, naval officer, electrician, sonar technologist, nuclear engineer, businessman, equipment designer, agronomist, master woodworker, Sunday School teacher, land-use planner, legislator, door-to-door missionary, governor, long-shot presidential candidate, U.S. president, diplomat, fly-fisherman, bird dog trainer, arrowhead collector, home builder, painter, professor, memoirist, poet, novelist, and children's book author - an incomplete list, as he would be happy to point out."
The president and his wife, Rosalynn - married for the better part of 80 years until her death in 2023 - grew up in a world that is now almost unrecognizable from the world that he left in recent days. People who try to do good and right in this world do so in a cynical, toxic environment where we doom-scroll through our days as we suffer the consequences of political polarization that is egged on by social media algorithms and cable news ratings.
The Carters both lived long enough to show us that, yes, we can fail by some short-term measures - in his case, most notably, the results of a presidential election - and yet we can still keep striving to be our best selves despite all the external forces that can sabotage the goal.
So many problems face our world as we head into 2025. More than ever, we need the memory of Jimmy Carter to continue to inspire us, to touch us, to motivate us, and to guide us, no matter our politics. May we be inspired by his lifelong learning and humble decency.
This Voices Editorial was submitted to The Commons.
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