Politics and Porn
I am frequently torn between two conflicting philosophies: hero worship versus the need for heroes.
All humans make mistakes, and all leaders are but human. If you put tremendous power in the hands of a fallible creature, those failings are magnified by that power. A man with a hot temper and nothing but a fist is no different than a man with a hot temper and a nuclear weapon. They're made of the same stuff, feel the same things, and are prone to the same mistakes. I just worry much more about setting off the latter. Michel Eyquem de Montaigne once said: "The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould. . . . The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbour causes a war betwixt princes."
The problem with hero worship is that, when following a hero, you are giving yourself over to someone just as fallible as you.
Of course, people need heroes (as long as people keep in mind that those heroes are human). Like I said, the best leader that a nation can hope for is one that inspires its people to do better.
There is a plague in this country. A plague of easily-wounded egos where the suggestion that someone might be better than you or may have a better idea of what's right is met with scorn. People don't want to be inspired, because that suggests there might be something wrong with them. People don't want heroes, even though they need them.
That's why you've got people like Bush in the White House and people like McCain-Palin on deck. People don't want a President who's better than them or smarter than them. People want a President that IS them. Why is "elite" a bad word when talking about Obama? If I'm a grunt soldier in an army, I want my general to be someone elite, not someone like PFC Cooter "Redneck" McDougal who's standing next to me in formation. Sadly, it seems that people want a President they'd want to have a beer with, not someone who will tell them a hard truth, like maybe they shouldn't be driving home tonight.
It's kind of the opposite of the trend you see in porn. Think to the 70s when you had porn stars like Ron Jeremy. Fat, ugly, hairy, greasy men. Basically, the same kind of guy that was going to be buying porn. The porn industry assumed that viewers would want to see people like themselves having sex with tons of beautiful women. All that changed over the next few decades when the industry realized that people didn't want to watch people who actually looked like themselves having sex. People wanted to see what their defensive, low self-esteem told them they should see themselves as: ripped, young hunks with shaved chests and enormous... muscles.
Why can't politics be more like porn? Why can't we elect leaders who are an ideal of human leadership rather than someone we'd relate to personally? Why do we elect Ron Jeremy when we should be electing, I dunno, some hot guy porn star? Oooh - better yet. Let's elect some hot CHICK pornstar. Let's get like Gianna Michaels or someone up there. Yeah, that's right Gianna, I can see it now: "Pull out of Iraq, but don't pull out of me!" Yeah. Give it to the country.
Ahem. I'm getting a little sidetracked.
Anyway, please, people of the USA, elect someone who at least has the appearance of being better than you are, otherwise the entire world will see the United States just like this:
All humans make mistakes, and all leaders are but human. If you put tremendous power in the hands of a fallible creature, those failings are magnified by that power. A man with a hot temper and nothing but a fist is no different than a man with a hot temper and a nuclear weapon. They're made of the same stuff, feel the same things, and are prone to the same mistakes. I just worry much more about setting off the latter. Michel Eyquem de Montaigne once said: "The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould. . . . The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbour causes a war betwixt princes."
The problem with hero worship is that, when following a hero, you are giving yourself over to someone just as fallible as you.
Of course, people need heroes (as long as people keep in mind that those heroes are human). Like I said, the best leader that a nation can hope for is one that inspires its people to do better.
There is a plague in this country. A plague of easily-wounded egos where the suggestion that someone might be better than you or may have a better idea of what's right is met with scorn. People don't want to be inspired, because that suggests there might be something wrong with them. People don't want heroes, even though they need them.
That's why you've got people like Bush in the White House and people like McCain-Palin on deck. People don't want a President who's better than them or smarter than them. People want a President that IS them. Why is "elite" a bad word when talking about Obama? If I'm a grunt soldier in an army, I want my general to be someone elite, not someone like PFC Cooter "Redneck" McDougal who's standing next to me in formation. Sadly, it seems that people want a President they'd want to have a beer with, not someone who will tell them a hard truth, like maybe they shouldn't be driving home tonight.
It's kind of the opposite of the trend you see in porn. Think to the 70s when you had porn stars like Ron Jeremy. Fat, ugly, hairy, greasy men. Basically, the same kind of guy that was going to be buying porn. The porn industry assumed that viewers would want to see people like themselves having sex with tons of beautiful women. All that changed over the next few decades when the industry realized that people didn't want to watch people who actually looked like themselves having sex. People wanted to see what their defensive, low self-esteem told them they should see themselves as: ripped, young hunks with shaved chests and enormous... muscles.
Why can't politics be more like porn? Why can't we elect leaders who are an ideal of human leadership rather than someone we'd relate to personally? Why do we elect Ron Jeremy when we should be electing, I dunno, some hot guy porn star? Oooh - better yet. Let's elect some hot CHICK pornstar. Let's get like Gianna Michaels or someone up there. Yeah, that's right Gianna, I can see it now: "Pull out of Iraq, but don't pull out of me!" Yeah. Give it to the country.
Ahem. I'm getting a little sidetracked.
Anyway, please, people of the USA, elect someone who at least has the appearance of being better than you are, otherwise the entire world will see the United States just like this: