Douglas C. Leonard – 50th Reunion Essay

Douglas C. Leonard

PO Box 76

Brooklyn, CT 06234-1814

1dl@charter.net

860-377-4025

Spouse(s): MaryBeth Leonard, wife since Nov. 22, 1968

Child(ren): Douglass Skelly Leonard (1977), Reilly Skipton Leonard (1980), Geoffrey Hamlin Leonard (1983)

Education: Yale College 1969, New York University School of Law 1972

National Service: Army National Guard 1970–1976

Career: Primarily General Counsel including 5 public companies.

Avocations: History, political science, economics, ethics

College: Timothy Dwight

Bright college years? Sure, who wouldn’t want to spend four years maturing in a nonthreatening environment during a ghastly war supported by the social order and from which you are magically exempt? Particularly at Yale with its unparalleled esthetically pleasing physical plant and stellar faculty. Not to mention the promise of the lifelong privilege that comes with a Yale degree. OK, the lectures and readings were largely irrelevant and boring, and the culture disturbingly skewed towards an unspoken affluent white male elitism, but hey, who’s complaining?

Having majored in it, I can attest to the fact that economics is, indeed, the dismal science. By the time I was indoctrinated in economic theory at Yale, the powers that be had long decided, unlike their renowned predecessors, to drop the historical, societal, ethical and philosophical aspects of economics, and rely virtually entirely, without good warrant, on amoral judgments based on numbers mechanically generated by simplistic equations that bear little relation to reality as humans have come to know it in their daily lives. But, who cares? It’s good for “the economy” (that is, the well off) and, particularly, the banks.

So why complain? My family and I have led reasonably prosperous lives, compared to the bulk of humanity, and, in recent decades, compared to other terrestrial life-forms as well. Does it matter that the majority of life-forms on this planet, perhaps even the human race, are scheduled to be eliminated within the lifetimes of our children because we have become all too comfortable with our privileged life styles? Is it even possible to discuss this all too likely possibility in polite company without being branded a communist, or worse, a conspiracy theorist? What happened to the golden rule (and I don’t mean those with the gold rule)?

Call me a cynic, call me a misguided idealist, call me a threat to civilized society, but don’t call me insensate to what stares us in the face.

May we, especially those among us who have been most endowed with success and its rewards, while we still breathe, take to heart and decisively act upon our still cherished motto, lux et veritas! We owe it to ourselves and our children.