Who is in charge around here?
Anti-institutional, Anti-authority, populist ... and lost
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One of the things we do around here at The Embassy is examine, think about, ruminate, and write about our culture. What is going on in our world, cultural trend wise, and what might it mean? If you are a subscriber, hopefully this is not news to you, if you are new - welcome! I want to think about (with you) something you surely have already noticed - I’m not claiming to have discovered it. I just want to think about what it means and how it impacts us and, if it applies, our faith.
Institutions
Surely you have noticed the cultural trends toward anti-institutionalism. It may be true that we were too trusting in institutions - our company, our government, our universities, even our churches. And some skepticism, as we have seen, may have been warranted and may be warranted still. But the pendulum has swung pretty far against anything, anyone, any idea from any institution - the more establishment the institution, the farther the pendulum seems to have swung.
Credentials
The doctor, (your doctor), the pastor, (your pastor), the scientist, (you don’t have a scientist, do you?) … in many cases is distrusted or ignored because they have credentials. The rando on YouTube is trusted because he or she is not (or is barely) accredited or credentialed. How many politicians run as outsiders? How many of them compete with each other for outsiderness? “Vote for me, I don’t even know where my office would be or where to park or what I might do - I know nothing about how these politicians work, I just know I am against them - and that you should vote for me because I am nothing like them.”
Authority
Anyone who has a place of traditional authority is increasingly distrusted - because of their place of traditional authority. Again, we might have our reasons, but … we may be reflexing a bit too far in the other direction. Even those who have spent a good portion of their lives becoming an expert in a field are - and this is the point, for that very reason - not listened to. Are some of them a bit wacky? Sure. Are some of them motivated by and influenced by things outside their area of expertise? Certainly. But it seems, in response to this, we want inexpert opinion. Or, really, we want to be completely unconstrained - we want to choose our opinions in areas governed by, like, facts, in the same way we choose our sweaters. We are the only authority we trust.
Populism
We believe in pure democracy. The little guy should decide everything. (Never mind that the little guy is more than one guy, more like two little guys who disagree about everything.)
As an aside, ‘anti-democratic’ has come to be equated with fascism, as if everything should be up for popular vote - not recognizing that we (on purpose) have anti-democratic elements in the Constitution. The Bill of Rights, for example, is there because our nation's founders not only feared the autocracy of the king, they feared the autocracy of the mob. They knew that some group might decide that the police should be able to kick down whatever doors they want (because I don’t think mine is the kind of door they will kick down), or that some people shouldn’t be able to say that (because I can say what I want), or that some people shouldn’t be able to worship that way … they knew we would have times and places when all of those would win a democratic vote, and, in the name of freedom, we shouldn’t allow it. That was a long aside, but we can see the founders were not populists.
And, to whom do we appeal in our disagreement? The rando on Twitter or Facebook or YouTube or Instagram - or the not exactly rando, but not exactly expert cable news host - that we want to appeal to, because he or she says what we want to hear? Or, sadly, often more appealing, the rando or not so rando who most effectively mocks the other side - representing the little guys who we don't want deciding anything - because our little guys should.
We want to be our own leader, our own expert, our own authority. This may not be working very well. You may have noticed.
The biblical book of Judges can be seen as a series of case studies in bad leaders, one worse than the next. We don’t have time to go into great detail, but I want to note first that this is not a new problem. In Judges 9, the people rally behind a leader who appeals to their tribal identity to gain power. This leader, Abimelek, after gaining the approval of his tribe, murdered the 70 people ahead of him in line for the throne - only one, Jotham, escaped. This remaining son ruined the resulting coronation by shouting this parable from the hills -
When Jotham was told about this, he climbed up on the top of Mount Gerizim and shouted to them, “Listen to me, citizens of Shechem, so that God may listen to you. One day the trees went out to anoint a king for themselves. They said to the olive tree, ‘Be our king.’
“But the olive tree answered, ‘Should I give up my oil, by which both gods and humans are honored, to hold sway over the trees?’
“Next, the trees said to the fig tree, ‘Come and be our king.’
“But the fig tree replied, ‘Should I give up my fruit, so good and sweet, to hold sway over the trees?’
“Then the trees said to the vine, ‘Come and be our king.’
“But the vine answered, ‘Should I give up my wine, which cheers both gods and humans, to hold sway over the trees?’
“Finally all the trees said to the thornbush, ‘Come and be our king.’
“The thornbush said to the trees, ‘If you really want to anoint me king over you, come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, then let fire come out of the thornbush and consume the cedars of Lebanon!’
Judges 9:7-15
Seems like Jotham is making a point that we might consider in our times. We get the leaders we deserve.
Nobody can tell anyone anything. Or, they can tell them anything, depending on the teller and the people. No leadership is required - just a shibboleth, a beauty contest, a personality cult, or a reaffirmation of my chosen tribe. At the same time (and we tend not to notice the connection) we decry that there are bad leaders everywhere - we wonder where leadership has gone, why good leadership is rare …
But, are they really the problem? How did we get here?
I have spent a good part of the last few years reading, thinking, talking, coaching, consulting, and writing about leadership. Not just what makes a good leader, but what is leadership? What does a leader do?
One simple definition of leadership is that which takes a group of people, with their willing participation that may not have been so willing at the start, to a place they wouldn't have chosen. One who catalyzes that group of people to identify with each other, to work for one another, become different together - all for their own good. Someone, in other words, who finds a way to give people not what they want, or what they say they want - but what is for their good and the good of others. And when we arrive together at the destination, we see that it is better - even if we don't readily or publicly admit it.
Tod Bolsinger, in one of the best books on leadership I know of (Canoeing the Mountains), defines leadership this way -
Leadership is energizing a community of people toward their own transformation in order to accomplish a shared mission in the face of a changing world.
Tod Bolsinger - Canoeing the Mountains
There is a lot to that definition of leadership. I don't think it is how we want to experience leadership. We want to experience affirmation, we want to experience the bond that comes from a common enemy, we want to experience a common victimization from that common enemy, we want to experience the faux righteousness that comes from being the right people fighting the wrong people. We want a spokesman, an avatar, an influencer - someone we identify with because they promise all that we want. In other words, we don't want a leader.
To pick another biblical, historical example, Saul was the first King of Israel. He was the king the people clamored for - a king, in their own (populist) formulation - “like all the other nations.” And God gives them exactly what they ask for. Tragic results for the nation follow.
And so, who is the problem here? If leadership is energizing a community of people toward their own transformation in order to accomplish a shared mission in the face of a changing world, then adamantly refusing to undergo (or even consider the necessity of) the hard work of transformation shortcuts my ability to be led. By anyone. As does refusing to be in a community. As does refusing a shared mission ... you get the idea.
Why are there no good leaders? may not be the best question. My guess is there are good leaders out there, but few people are listening to them. What does a good leader offer? Transformation - including his or her own? A shared community and mission? What if I don't want these things?
We live in a media culture that brings whatever gets clicks and eyeballs to the front of the line. This often means the outrageous or the inflaming. Us decrying them - and all those spokespeople for the decrying of them and the celebration of us. They are all around us because the market for outrage, anger, toxic group identification, and condemnation is, as (credentialed) economists say, efficient. Very efficient. It gives us exactly what we demand.
Maybe they aren't the problem.
