h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Christiane,

You're welcome to add me as a friend. You may be disappointed though. While I am capable of making (and holding to) a serious point, I spend far more of my time blaming 2legs for all that's ill in the world, and posting to similarly futile conversations.

Paulh : "Are great men always bad men? Are they not allowed to be fully human"

Sadly, no, they are not. The sustained pressure of 'greatness' introduces 'creep', in the QI thread 'sometimes they don't come back' meaning. Over time, the deformation of a personality will tend to increase 'negative' and decrease 'positive' aspects of a personality (i.e., will bring more determined, more forceful traits to the fore, while suppressing more generous, more giving elements). You don't get to be a world champion / leader by being the nicest, you get there by being the one who does what needs doing.
While the traits aren't exclusive, they do tend to need compromise to work together.

I like your analysis, Deadangel.

Socrates noted pretty much the same thing when he observed that
"wickness [or corruption] runs faster than death." It's true that social pressures can work to warp a personality. Throw in a growing sense of guilt and powerlessness, and a person might move another step down by adding substance abuse.

Do these negative changes necessarily remain fixed in place, though? Psychologists speak of something called the "shadow self" that can resurface. You can reconnect with parts of yourself that have been submerged for many years. Not everyone can do this, but isn't it worthwhile to try if the opportunity arises?

Of course. The trouble is though, to give the opportunity to change back, you'd need to remove the presure in the negative direction. Which, in the case of a leader, would usually mean removing them from the position of power, and therefore their opportunity to further 'greatness'.

My goodness you two are cynics. !!

I honestly do NOT believe that to be powerful de facto means you are going to be corrupt.

Of course you can become corrput once you are powerful.

but is is definitely NOT nececessary.

I can think of several leaders on the African continent who most certainly did NOT become corrupt.

the principal one being President Nelson Mandela.

But there was also another one Kenneth Kaunda who was President of of Zambia forermly Northern Rhodesia.

and Sir Stuart gore Brown a wonderful man who lived in the heart of \Northern Rhodesia. His two daughters were at school with me.

Of course there is Archbiship Desmond Tutu and his wife Leah, whom I was privileged to know.

I an saddened ti see the disgraceful press reports which some of your newspapers are printing on your President.

Don't you think that the media has something to do with it?

go well,

Christiane
AlsoRan80

Wednesday 30th June 2010 7.31 BST

I can think of some former U.S. presidents who resisted the social and political pressures that would have corrupted them. Teddy Roosevelt and Harry Truman come to mind. Going further back, there was John Adams, who was willing to sacrifice the chance of a second term by refusing to allow the U.S. to get into a war with France, which he considered a wrong course of action.

We are too close to our present leaders to be objective about them. President Barack Obama seems to be a principled man, though many media people think they see flaws or evil intentions in him. Mostly, he has a huge sea of troubles to swim in, very few (if any) of them of his own making. Many people form that other party are impatient to get him out so they can be in charge again, which they seem to think is their God-given entitlement. They won't refrain from nitpicking every mistake that they see him make, even if their own leaders (past and present) have made some of the same mistakes. This kind of thing turns me off of politics. Unfortunately, there were people who complained about everything George W Bush did. Bush surely did some things right; even a broken clock is right twice a day. He was criticized for reading a storybook to a fourth grade class in Florida when he heard the news of the 9-11 attacks. He heard the news, finished the story, and then left the classroom to deal with the situation. I frankly don't see anything wrong with that. He was calm. He showed that he felt his listeners mattered. He didn't alarm anyone. Would the terrorists have been stopped if he hadn't spent a few extra minutes reading to the kids? What is really important in this world? Those kids will grow up remembering his dignity and poise.

You are both, of course, right. People who gain power are generally not corrupted by it, when they gain the power. The struggle comes later.

When you have what can be taken as an unbridled ability to intervene, to do what you see as 'the right thing', it can get to be impossible to see that what the actual 'right' thing to do is to not intervene at all. People who retain that ability tend to stand out because they are less common.

paulh : I agree completely about GWB's reaction to the news of the attack. The first plane could have easily been taken as a tragic accident. It was only after the other planes hit that it was nothing of the sort became obvious. GWB, is that instance served as a figurehead, nothing more. His roles were to prevent the widespread outbreak of panic by staying calm, and drawing attention away from those trying to control the situation / limit the damage in the first response.