Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Satori
Reading Jonathan Rauch's latest piece on extroverts and introverts in politics (pointed via Dreher) was a true enlightenment.
Now I genuinely understand why politicians are so monumentally stupid, why so completely disconnected from reality, and why the teamwork principle is so powerful. Why does the wildly false theory of Global Warming continue to rule the world? Why is protecting our own industries unthinkable? Why do we continue to fight useless wars? Why are we content to remain Number 33 in the world on so many vital measurements while calling ourselves #1?
It's not campaign finance, not bribery, not corruption, though all of those things are present and problematic.
No, it's much simpler. Nearly all politicians are extroverts. This means they cannot observe reality, cannot perceive facts. They only perceive the content-free verbal excrementa of other politicians.
Rauch is one of the best thinkers around ... nearly two decades ago, long before it was obvious to most of us, he was the first to understand and describe the total paralysis of our political process. He called it Demosclerosis. ¶ 11:29 AM
For one thing, extroverts are overrepresented in politics, a profession in which only the garrulous are really comfortable. Look at George W. Bush. Look at Bill Clinton. They seem to come fully to life only around other people. To think of the few introverts who did rise to the top in politics—Calvin Coolidge, Richard Nixon—is merely to drive home the point. With the possible exception of Ronald Reagan, whose fabled aloofness and privateness were probably signs of a deep introverted streak (many actors, I've read, are introverts, and many introverts, when socializing, feel like actors), introverts are not considered "naturals" in politics.
Extroverts therefore dominate public life. This is a pity. If we introverts ran the world, it would no doubt be a calmer, saner, more peaceful sort of place. As Coolidge is supposed to have said, "Don't you know that four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still?"
...
The worst of it is that extroverts have no idea of the torment they put us through. Sometimes, as we gasp for air amid the fog of their 98-percent-content-free talk, we wonder if extroverts even bother to listen to themselves.
Now I genuinely understand why politicians are so monumentally stupid, why so completely disconnected from reality, and why the teamwork principle is so powerful. Why does the wildly false theory of Global Warming continue to rule the world? Why is protecting our own industries unthinkable? Why do we continue to fight useless wars? Why are we content to remain Number 33 in the world on so many vital measurements while calling ourselves #1?
It's not campaign finance, not bribery, not corruption, though all of those things are present and problematic.
No, it's much simpler. Nearly all politicians are extroverts. This means they cannot observe reality, cannot perceive facts. They only perceive the content-free verbal excrementa of other politicians.
Rauch is one of the best thinkers around ... nearly two decades ago, long before it was obvious to most of us, he was the first to understand and describe the total paralysis of our political process. He called it Demosclerosis. ¶ 11:29 AM
