Power,” said Henry Adams, “is poison”; and it is a poison which blinds the eyes of moral insight and lames the will of moral purpose. - Reinhold Niebuhr

Perhaps human self hood in it's collective form is unable to imagine any higher value than the common value of it's devotion. Hence, the redemptive value of dissident individuals, the prophet, the critic, even the rebel, in a free community.

The moral achievement of statesmen must be judged in terms which take account of the limitations of human society which the statesman must, and the prophet need not, consider.

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, Courage to change the things which should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.