Vote for Someone Better (than You)
As I'm sure you know, both Canada and the US are off to the polls in a few weeks. If you didn't, please go pat yourself on the back not living in, or being from, North America. If you do happen to be in North America and didn't know this, just stop reading now - you have more important problems to deal with, like being a moron. Speaking of morons, back to the election talk.
One of the most annoying (scary?) things I see happening in both campaigns is an increasing tendency for people to express a preference for a candidate based on how they feel the candidate is a 'normal guy/gal' like they are. It's scary in the case of Palin and Harper, but the other candidates aren't really good enough at it to make it anything other than annoying. I could address this to spin doctors or the media, pushing this idea of the average Joe Candidate, but I'd rather treat the dupees as people. My point is simple: were our best leaders really people to whom you could relate personally? Even in the few cases that you can really say you identify with that great leader as having been a middle-class gun-toting mother of five / eerily wooden, sweatered family man, was it really their 'relatability' that made them great? Probably not.
I'm going to make a safe pick here for my great leader example: Abe Lincoln, everyone's favourite Republican. I know what you're thinking: civil war. But, let's start earlier. It's 1837, so the odds are good, you, like Lincoln, grew up in a single-roomed log cabin. It's also possible that, like Lincoln, you happened to be from outside the thirteen colonies and as such your land title was regarded as a bit iffy, forcing you to move twice because of conflicting claims. You rebuilt your livelihood anew instead of keeping it from others by force, right? You're such a sweetie like that, just like the Lincolns. In what other ways are you like Abe Lincoln? Since it's 1837, you're unlikely to have had any more than Abe's 18 months of formal education. That's something. However, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you probably didn't read voraciously and get called to the bar. (The lawyering one, not the drinking one.)
Well, maybe you really identify with his behaviours once he took office? Maybe some of the things he did made you stop and think, "Right on! I was just doing that the other week." Remember that time you stood up in front of your colleagues at work and told them what a bunch of assholes they were for shoving around that other country and suggesting that they might be doing it just to look big? Neither do I. When this actually happened, people stopped relating to Abe Lincoln enough that he left politics for a while. Maybe this phenomenon is nothing new, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating.
Beyond being more prepared, intelligent, or other difficult to quantify things, it's important for leaders to be able to recognize how the status quo must change to improve all our lives. Identifying themselves as a cookie-cutter representation of this status quo prevents them from doing this properly in my opinion. Even if it's not going to hold them back, it's certainly a sign that the status quo holds the so-called "average voter" back. I'm just saying, unless you think you'd be the best leader we'd have, don't vote for someone because they're "like you".
(And if you still think you'd be the best choice, get on the ballot. Then, call your shrink.)
Originally published at Mangocado.
» Click here « to leave any comments.
One of the most annoying (scary?) things I see happening in both campaigns is an increasing tendency for people to express a preference for a candidate based on how they feel the candidate is a 'normal guy/gal' like they are. It's scary in the case of Palin and Harper, but the other candidates aren't really good enough at it to make it anything other than annoying. I could address this to spin doctors or the media, pushing this idea of the average Joe Candidate, but I'd rather treat the dupees as people. My point is simple: were our best leaders really people to whom you could relate personally? Even in the few cases that you can really say you identify with that great leader as having been a middle-class gun-toting mother of five / eerily wooden, sweatered family man, was it really their 'relatability' that made them great? Probably not.
I'm going to make a safe pick here for my great leader example: Abe Lincoln, everyone's favourite Republican. I know what you're thinking: civil war. But, let's start earlier. It's 1837, so the odds are good, you, like Lincoln, grew up in a single-roomed log cabin. It's also possible that, like Lincoln, you happened to be from outside the thirteen colonies and as such your land title was regarded as a bit iffy, forcing you to move twice because of conflicting claims. You rebuilt your livelihood anew instead of keeping it from others by force, right? You're such a sweetie like that, just like the Lincolns. In what other ways are you like Abe Lincoln? Since it's 1837, you're unlikely to have had any more than Abe's 18 months of formal education. That's something. However, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you probably didn't read voraciously and get called to the bar. (The lawyering one, not the drinking one.)
Well, maybe you really identify with his behaviours once he took office? Maybe some of the things he did made you stop and think, "Right on! I was just doing that the other week." Remember that time you stood up in front of your colleagues at work and told them what a bunch of assholes they were for shoving around that other country and suggesting that they might be doing it just to look big? Neither do I. When this actually happened, people stopped relating to Abe Lincoln enough that he left politics for a while. Maybe this phenomenon is nothing new, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating.
Beyond being more prepared, intelligent, or other difficult to quantify things, it's important for leaders to be able to recognize how the status quo must change to improve all our lives. Identifying themselves as a cookie-cutter representation of this status quo prevents them from doing this properly in my opinion. Even if it's not going to hold them back, it's certainly a sign that the status quo holds the so-called "average voter" back. I'm just saying, unless you think you'd be the best leader we'd have, don't vote for someone because they're "like you".
(And if you still think you'd be the best choice, get on the ballot. Then, call your shrink.)
Originally published at Mangocado.
» Click here « to leave any comments.