Even rock stars are yearning to mingle with statesmen. Over the summer, singer Peter Gabriel cosponsored the formation of a group called ‘The Elders.’ According to their Web site, The Elders will, “use their unique collective skills to catalyse peaceful resolutions to long-standing conflicts ... and share wisdom by helping to connect voices all over the world.” The Elders’ roster is like a Hall of Fame for hipster statesmen, including former presidents Jimmy Carter, Mary Robinson, Fernando Cardoso and Nelson Mandela.

But there are two very powerful constraints on ability of the hipster statesmen to get anything done. First, the policy-entrepreneur approach cannot work on all policy problems. To update Truman’s aphorism for the 21st century, when you are a statesman, you can choose your issues; when you are a politician, the issues choose you. Real politicians do not always respond to the pleas of statesmen, because they are busy avoiding the fate of becoming a statesman. Wealth, popularity and glamour might be enticing, but as Henry Kissinger once observed, power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Second, calling attention to a problem is not the same thing as solving it. The assumption underlying the hipster statesmen is that once people become aware of a problem, there will be a groundswell of support for direct action — what Gore labeled “an opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level” after winning the Nobel. This is not how politics usually works, particularly in the international realm. Any solution to a problem like global warming, for example, involves significant costs — and the distribution of those costs is a contentious issue. Even if more people become aware of a policy problem, it is far from guaranteed that a consensus or compromise will emerge about the best way to solve it.