Insanity at the Top

Guess where the followers are voluntarily headed?

First, an analogy. If you fly on a plane you want the best pilot you can find, Sully Sullenberger, for example, crashed a jet into the Hudson with such aplomb that everybody walked away. Sully is good in a crisis. He doesn’t lose his nerve. He’s trained for this moment as it manifests. In just the same way, citizens elevate somebody with the skills and steady nerve to lead the nation, and, if necessary, land the plane against all odds.

Hire a grifter and you get the grift. Hire a criminal and the law is under the control of criminals, which means, we all are. Hire your brightest and best, and at least she’ll put the most qualified people in charge, because she’s been an administrator and things worked more smoothly after she left than when she got the job. Hire a delusional paranoid billionaire and governing is not in the cards. It’s more like a terrorist is driving a school bus at dangerous speeds and the whole thing is wired to blow. Stay tuned for the next episode.

This is madness of course. If we looked at how European countries were governing themselves after two great atrocities without borders, we might see their distaste for the theatrical effect of the egotist or for charisma as a qualifier for leadership. Jim Jones had charisma. Stalin had charisma. The Pied Piper had charisma, and was possibly involved in human trafficking. “… keine Charismatikerin mehr, eine Frau mit Verstand.” (No more charismatics, a woman with sense.)

A lot of people have followed an insane person off into a schizophrenic reality. It’s not that hard to get lost in it, because it has its own logic. One of the hardest jobs in psychiatry is working with schizophrenics without being seduced into their reality. It is very logical. The only problem is, it’s not sane. It just seems sane when you are inside the logical framework being spun by the schizophrenic. It can pull you out of reality even if you’re trained to deal with it.

I think the rest of us are just stunned to watch these other people, sometimes our family members, being led away from reality, like children under the spell of the flautist. He showed up and started making big promises. The kids were gone before we realized he was harvesting a crop for sale to wealthy clients.

Why is he always the victim? Being the victim means you don’t have to compromise. Why should you? You’re the wronged party. You are owed. So no big surprise that a grifter would use this simple tool of the trade. It’s the easiest grift there is, except maybe for the presumption of truth.

It’s good to keep in mind what’s behind the victim mask. It’s the oppressor. It’s the criminal who doesn’t even ask. He likes them helpless. We learn who people are by exposure to them: what do they say about other people? Are they nasty and accusative? Do they make stupid remarks and laugh at them in lieu of having wit? Such bad actors drag a population down. In leadership positions, they are typically Ivy League educated with a talent for behaving like semi-literate trash. Their career path is Fox Commentary to Cabinet Secretary. The leader is the opposite of a good leader.

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves. (Lao Tzu)

The quality pyramid base is people talking about other people, the next level up, a smaller space, is people talking about events, and the top of the pyramid is people talking about ideas. To administer a government a person has to navigate at all three levels, knowing the bottom levels to be inescapable for most people, so meeting them where they are, and knowing the top is objective. The more objective the administration the more positive energy it creates. Objectivity is fairness, justice, and equal treatment under the law.