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PATHOLOGY AND POLITICS
THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH writing a steamy novel or two. There is,
however, something really weird about writing a steamy novel or two and
then thinking you're the best guy to defeat an incumbent GOP senator in
a state that hosts Jerry Falwell's operations down in Lynchburg. After
all, you don't want to end up like the 'Wreck of the Old 97':
It's a mighty rough road from Lynchburg to Danville,
It was lying on a three-mile grade,
It was on that grade that he lost his air brakes,
And you see what a jump that she made.
He was going down the grade making 90 miles an hour,
When his whistle began to scream,
He was found in that wreck with his hand on the throttle,
He was scalded to death by the steam.
Imagine if Jim Webb had done something mildly intelligent like calling
up Howard Dean and saying, "Hey, I'm thinking about running for senator
and thought maybe a thing I wrote in a steamy novel about a boy sticking
his penis in a man's mouth might be a problem. Whadya think?"
But Jim Webb probably didn't check with anyone because, in his view, he
was clearly the man for the job and if any hassles came up he figured he
could just spin his way out of them just as most major figures do these
days.
There's just one little problem. This story isn't just about Jim Webb,
it's also about the Democratic Party which is within inches of taking
the Senate, and it is ultimately about America which is suffering under
its most repressively rightwing government in history. Maybe it won't
matter at all, but it would be too bad to lose the whole Senate thanks
because of a poorly placed blow job.
A normal reaction would have been to make a choice: both respectable.
Either you write steamy novels or you run as the Democratic candidate
for Senate in Jerry Falwell's turf. You don't do both not because you
don't think in the best of all worlds you should be able to, but because
in the year 2006 in the Commonwealth of Virginia you know you're just
asking for trouble.
Yet an increasing number of leaders in America don't have such normal
reactions because their narcissism has long passed the point of
individual character, spilling over into the lives of their friends,
their allies, and their constituencies. They make everyone around them
hostages on their ego trips.
This unconsciousness of, or indifference to, the effect of one's acts on
others is an increasingly familiar phenomenon. George Bush is, of
course, a prime example with a history of making others suffer for his
ambtions as far back as his teen years when he and his buddies would
blow up frogs with firecrackers and as recently as the last soldiers and
civilians to die in Iraq.
Then we have Representative Marc Foley who, even as he was chasing male
pages, was parading as a leading opponent of child pornography and
serving as chair of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children.
His victims now include some of his own colleagues in tight election
races.
Then we have Jane Fernandes, just dumped as the new head of Gallaudet
University, who despite massive opposition from students, alumni and 80%
of the faculty, put Gallaudet through weeks of turmoil because she saw
the struggle as primarily a personal one she had to win to prove
herself.
And let's not forget Hillary Clinton whose ego is so uncontrolled she is
planning to run for president knowing full well that she carries past
baggage explosive enough that the TSA should ban her from ever flying.
We are not talking mere ambition here or even the ordinary narcissism of
a pol. We are speaking of people who are supremely incapable of
understanding or respecting the impact of their own behavior and faults
on others.
I first noticed a jump in this sort of behavior in the 1990s with a
number of non-profit executive directors who seemed bizarrely
unconcerned with the consequences to the organization of their egos and
arrogance. They projected an image of great leadership but were in fact
sinking their own ship.
The problem seemed to stem in part from the diaspora of the new robber
baron ethic promulgated by major business schools. The skills of
management were often seen as independent of, and in isolation from,
whatever was being managed. If you had these skills you could even be
the conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra without ever really
understanding music since running an orchestra was, after all, just
another management problem.
Aside from the illogic of such an approach, it gave vastly more
importance to the dominating personality and manic drive of those in
charge than to their competence in the matters at hand or to their
social intelligence. It easily became more like theater than actual
work. The 'great' manager performed a role rather than actually carrying
it out.
In many cases, things worked fine because competence was also there even
if deemed of lesser importance. But increasingly, those who were good at
manipulating people, situations, and language without either the
competence or the ability to work in an effective way with others were
the ones who made it to the top. Their pathological narcissism and
absence of shame about it was too often mistaken for strong leadership.
It also doesn't help that there are now 300 million of us. Ambition has
a harder climb and those who succeed often do so - like the viper and
the shark - for reasons that are not all that pleasant to contemplate.
And it is true that rooted power - power that comes out of place,
tradition, or community - has largely lost its influence and with it the
idea of success being dependent upon something other than oneself.
Certainly in politics, we seem to place little value on either
experience or service.
But, whatever the reasons, we are besotted by those whose idea of
leadership is defined by their own ambitions with little reference to,
or concern about, the well-being or desires of those around them.
A psychiatrist once suggested to me that a good way to diagnose
pathology in someone is to count the bodies that they leave behind.
Which is to say that healthy people don't leave a trail of victims as
they go through life. On the other hand, the disordered, no matter how
convincing their claim to normalcy, produce a wake that tells a
different story. In no small part, this is because their definition of
progress and success too often stops with themselves. Others are just so
many hostages of their fantasies. Which would be all right if it were
just a steamy novel, but unfortunately it's real life.
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