Ett eftersträvansvärt ideal

Vi har ju börjat föra en diskussion här på bloggen om ett hållbart mansideal och sunda förebilder. Av en händelse snubblade jag idag över följande utdrag ur Daniel Yergins bok The Prize. I korthet kan man säga att texten tecknar en levnadsbeskrivning för Sir John Norton-Griffiths, en man i ordets rätta bemärkelse. Jag får lov att skicka ett tack till Foster Huntington från Maine för inspirationen.

“The British Government took matters into its own hands (the sabotaging of German occupied Russian oil fields) and recruited Colonel John Norton-Griffiths M.P., to organize the destruction of the Romanian oil industry. A larger-than-life figure, Norton-Griffiths was one of the great engineering contractors of the British Empire. He had undertaken construction projects in almost every corner of the world—railways in Angola and Chile and Australia, harbors in Canada, aqueducts in Baku, sewage systems in Battersea and Manchester. On the eve of World War I, he was in the midst of promoting a plan for a new subway for Chicago. Handsome, physically imposing and with the strength and endurance of a prize fighter, Norton-Griffiths was a charming swashbuckler and a persuasive showman. Men invested in his projects, women were attracted to him. He was considered ‘one of the most dashing men of the Edwardian era.’ He was also a man of fiery temperament, rebellious nature, and uncontrollable rages. He lacked discipline and perseverance, and some of his projects were spectacular financial flops. But he did achieve prominence as a Parliamentary back-bencher, variously known as ‘Hell-fire Jack,’ and ‘the Monkey’ (for having eaten a monkey while in Africa) and since he was a thoroughgoing imperialist—by the sobriquet he treasured most, ‘Empire Jack.’”