This seems to be generally true throughout the ages. The course of history – for good and bad – seems to be determined by the minority who are not cattle.

These are good – and bad as well. The good ones nudge the cattle toward green pastures; the bad ones nudge them toward the chute that leads to the meat grinder.

Two examples come to mind to make the point.

The first is the rise of humanism during the Enlightenment and its ultimate flowering in the American Revolution, which was led (intellectually) by people such as Jefferson and Paine who articulated the principles of individualism, especially the principle that no individual is born with superior rights.

These were bright men who could have used their abilities for self-aggrandizement but chose not to. Who chose, instead, to defend the cause of the average man's right to live an extraordinary life. This is not to say that either man – or any man, ever – was without flaw, either personally or intellectually. Jefferson notoriously owned slaves; Paine defended the absurd idea of equality as such and almost lost his head to its most ardent expostulators. But it takes a dark heart to assess either man as fundamentally bad or even not-well-intended.