The Difference Between Leadership and Bullying
Many growing up schooled in the public education system, never realize the difference between leadership and bullying -- because all they’ve seen is bullying, intimidation, coercion, manipulation, indoctrination, from their classmates, teachers, and the teachers from more senior teachers (administrators) on up. And so there is no real discussion of what freedom is -- but in its negative connotations, that if people were free, they would be free to do all kinds of horrible, antisocial things -- rather than that they have the freedom to create all the wonderful possibilities never seen before.
Because of that presumption of the evil and bad in human nature that they pride themselves in as the “liberal” way, they need to pass every kind of law and regulation to dictate appropriate (correct) behavior -- in every situation, and those that are not thus prescribed by authorities and experts on high, are implicitly forbidden and unlawful even to imagine. Another view, would be the confidence that if intelligence is simply awakened and allowed to do its will, thoughtless and antisocial behavior does not manifest -- but native intelligence does unless it is distorted, perverted, coerced.
So what is disturbing in the discussions that take place at the legislature, is the lack of faith and confidence that people do the right thing without these compulsions to do so. Freedom and free societies are really about having choices and the freedom to choose among the choices -- rather than to have ever increasing monopolies forced upon us, even and especially in our thinking -- by institutions originally organized for that reason.
The very language of these discussions, is adversarial and antagonistic, rather than being the object of “communications,” which means "to talk over with." Mass communications, the style adopted as the standard in the 20th century, is really a “talking at," or communications which somebody as perceptive as George Orwell, warned of the dangers as the doublethink of “mass communications.” The purpose is not to make communication more likely and possible, but to make it actually impossible -- with opposition and hierarchy hardened even before a word is exchanged. It is enough just to label the other as the opposition and inferior, not to have to listen to them. But in that way, they also become incapable of communicating effectively to anybody else -- because com-munication can only take place between peers and equals.
Thus, they exist only to nullify each other. It is the very denial of being in a free society -- this dominance and vanquishing of every other -- because that defines their essential human relationship, which is the basis of all society, culture and government.
posted by Mike Hu @ 10:01 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
It's quite necessary to distinguish "leadership" from merely "dominance" -- in a pecking order. Because this distinction was not made in the past, leaders often got to the top not because they were representative of the population that acclaimed them so but because they were merely successful at getting to the top -- and once there, have no idea of what to do next but defend "their" turf and mete out the “spoils” of victory by ruthlessly “rewarding their friends and punishing their enemies.” And that’s what we came to know as government in Hawaii in a former era -- which was often abetted greatly by a complicit media consolidating their own power.
Hopefully we’ve moved on permanently to a more enlightened era of governance and government -- in which we have moderns leaders competent in the skills of leadership and not merely primitive, partisan warfare -- in which one group asserts their supremacy over all the others to dominate all the others in their exclusive self-serving interest. That’s not what government or society is about -- or meant to be, although its defenders may claim, “We’ve always done it that way before!”
The Constitution of the most enlightened countries of the world, feature this concept of perpetual self-improvement -- and not just defending the status quo and perpetuating the dynasty of the latest masters. These people may initially desire justice for all, but often as not, once they secure their own comfortable and safe niches, now become merely the present defenders of the status quo. They may remember the words that stirred them to noble sentiments in the past, but once they are among the privileged, like the advantages and trappings of that status and think they ought to be made lifetime entitlements. But of course, once they are gone, everyone else can “have it all.” But while they are alive, it’ll be over their dead bodies.
The new elites may argue strongly that twice the median incomes are not enough, and are really, poverty level if you factor in their “cost of living adjustments,” which is unque only to them. Since the media, schools and university professors are of similar self-serving unions who tirelessly run “public service announcements” to inform us of their great sacrifices for everybody else, there’s nobody left to point out that they haven’t been working for free as their self-serving promotions suggest, but are already doing considerably better than the median citizen who is being asked to scrifice further to support them in the style in which they would like to think is appropriate to their stations in life.
After all, not everyone in the world can obtain the most coveted B.Ed. Degree from the University of Hawaii, for which they sacrificed being the governor of the state of Hawaii and therefore ought to be paid as much!
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