The Art of Listening - Comments Page 2

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• 26 - Dave Nalle

  Feb 08, 2005 at 2:19 pm

  The tradition of ivy league elitists pretending to be 'just plain folk' is one of the great traditions in American politics going back to Thomas Jefferson who was about the biggest elitist on earth but still won the presidency on the strength of being an advocate for the little people. I think it really goes back even farther in politics to the days of leaders like Peter the Great in Russia. It's the idea of the nobleman who chooses to live like a peasant so that he can understand their plight and rule them better when he comes to power. It's a very appealing, very romantic idea.
  
  When done in a way which seem genuine - as in the case of George W. Bush - it can be very effective. To make it work Bush had to largely separate from his family, go out and fail in business several times and then sort of work his way up to prominence on his own. When it't done in a way which seems artificial I think it's a disastrous strategy - Louis XVI and his fake peasant village at Versailles.
  
  But what makes it a bad thing? Would you rather have an elitist like John Kerry who says effectively "I'm better than you so I'll do your thinking for you" or one like George W. Bush who says "I may have a priveleged background, but I've worked hard to understand you and I think I can speak for you because of that."
  
  Dave

• 27 - alienboy

  Feb 09, 2005 at 4:58 am

  Morning Dave,
  
  Interesting points - see, I knew you could be relevant and interesting when you want to! lol
  
  Just because there is a long tradition of deceit amongst your educational "elite" doesn't make it acceptable, does it?
  
  Do you think that a member of the ruling elite can ACTUALLY come to understand the needs and aspirations of the larger, more impoverished public?
  
  I think it might be possible - but not without a lot of effort and disciplined hard work, far more than any contemporary leader could ever spare.
  
  I guess the question of whether Bush does a good job is a subjective thing, but please trust me when I say that, from a distance, it seems very difficult to see the difference between Bush and one of those travelling snakeoil salesmen. He really comes across as fake, kind of like a commission-based sales person.
  
  I'm not up on the details of Bush's business past, but I seem to recall reading an article that said he managed to run an oil company, in Texas!, into the ground and was then bailed out by some rich family friends.
  
  If that is a true story, it would rather change the image of the man, no?
  
  Do you think the successes and failures of an Ivy Leaguer can, in all seriousness, be compared to the daily grind of just plain folks? It seems a bit of a stretch to me.
  
  It seems important that if someone wants to be trusted to be given the job of leading a country, the least they could do is be honest and open about it. After all, if they're lying to their own electorate, how can they be trusted on anything else at all?
  
  I don't think Kerry has ever said that, and doubt he thinks it, although he does come off like that sometimes.
  
  Bush has the "Tin Men" routine down to a fine art, but it plays way better in the USA than internationally, where that kind of cheesiness just doesn't play so well. He just comes across as rather bogus.
  
  One of the most important qualities of a leader is to NOT give in to the worst impulses of a society, but the current regime seems to embody these impulses, not channel them.
  
  This is one of the things that worries the USA's close friends and partners, particularly in Europe, as some of the reaction to US "initiatives" inevitably splashes over its close friends.
  
  If the USA then displays indifference to the messy splatter, who wouldn't be offended by that? Nobody would tolerate that kind of behaviour on a personal level, so why would it be acceptable on an international level where the stakes are so much higher?
  
  

• 28 - dietdoc

  Feb 09, 2005 at 6:12 am

  Alienboy writes:
  
  "please trust me when I say that, from a distance, it seems very difficult to see the difference between Bush and one of those travelling snakeoil salesmen. He really comes across as fake, kind of like a commission-based sales person."
  
  Reply: My father, a died-in-the-wool Democrat and union man all his life, says that the one thing he really finds obnoxious about GWB is his smile. He describes it much as you - a smirk more than a smile. He really has strong negative feelings about the man. We completely avoid the issue altogether as I am just right of center, politically. My mother always tries to steer the conversation away from politics, completely.
  
  But I never cease to be amazed at how angry he can get about the person, not necessarily the agenda, of the man, himself.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Ron

• 29 - Dave Nalle

  Feb 09, 2005 at 7:30 am

  Alienboy:
  
  >>Just because there is a long tradition of deceit amongst your educational "elite" doesn't make it acceptable, does it?<<
  
  It's actually the old money aristocracy of wealth, not the educational elite. These folks are the closest thing we have to a nobility here in the US. The educational elite are part of a separate class of intelligentsia and generally not people who go into politics, though there is overlap between the two groups.
  
  >>Do you think that a member of the ruling elite can ACTUALLY come to understand the needs and aspirations of the larger, more impoverished public?<<
  
  I think that's a matter of how capable he is of projecting himself into other peoples viewpoints. Some people are just naturally very good at this. Others are not. If he's a person who reads a book and makes an emotional connection with the characters in the book and comes to understand them and people like them better as a result, that's good enough. If Bush read and understood John Grisham's "A Painted House", for example, it would hav equipped him to understand a whole segment of the population he would normally never have contact with. Maybe that's superficial, but it's as good as you're likely to get. And the truth is that no one is going to elect a poor farmer or an inner city garbage man president anytime soon. And if they WERE elected they'd have as much trouble understanding the needs of the middle class as Bush has understanding them.
  
  >>I think it might be possible - but not without a lot of effort and disciplined hard work, far more than any contemporary leader could ever spare.<<
  
  Well, what do you think those 30 years bumming around Texas half drunk all the time were all about. Bush made himself part of a class of people, the entrepreneurial salesmen of the oil industry of that era, and that took him out of his background, put him with a new class of people, and put him in contact not only with people of the same class, but also the people they did business with and who worked for them. That's a lot of exposure, from quasi-legal Mexican roughnecks to pipe fitters to truckers and real estate speculators and everyone else you come into contact with in a day of work.
  
  >>I guess the question of whether Bush does a good job is a subjective thing, but please trust me when I say that, from a distance, it seems very difficult to see the difference between Bush and one of those travelling snakeoil salesmen. He really comes across as fake, kind of like a commission-based sales person.<<
  
  I think that's a personal thing. Having known a lot of people like him, or like the personna he has adopted, living here in Texas, I see exactly what he is trying to be and am not so troubled by it.
  
  >>I'm not up on the details of Bush's business past, but I seem to recall reading an article that said he managed to run an oil company, in Texas!, into the ground and was then bailed out by some rich family friends. <<
  
  Yep, and there's no better experience in the world than running a small, doomed, entrepreneurial business where all the responsibility is on your head. Even if he was bailed out in the end, he still got the experience of trying desperately and failing. And later business ventures did better. He really did do a remarkable job when he was wit the Texas Rangers Baseball team.
  
  >>If that is a true story, it would rather change the image of the man, no? <<
  
  Why?
  
  >>Do you think the successes and failures of an Ivy Leaguer can, in all seriousness, be compared to the daily grind of just plain folks? It seems a bit of a stretch to me.<<
  
  Believe me, it's plenty humiliating to have to be bailed out by your dad's friends, and even if you don't end up personally impoverished, you still know you failed.
  
  I've known so many people like Bush who went through the same life cycle without necessarily having as good connections. They pick up the pieces, start another enterprise and move on. They may fail a dozen times before they either hit the right groove or drink themselves to death. We're talking people who solely on wit and charm go from millionaire to bankrupt to millionaire to bankrupt in the course of 5 years.
  
  >>It seems important that if someone wants to be trusted to be given the job of leading a country, the least they could do is be honest and open about it. After all, if they're lying to their own electorate, how can they be trusted on anything else at all?<<
  
  I don't see how he's hidden anything about his background. It's just like Kerry's in most ways, except that he at least tried a career in business while Kerry went straight into government on a golden carpet.
  
  >>Bush has the "Tin Men" routine down to a fine art, but it plays way better in the USA than internationally, where that kind of cheesiness just doesn't play so well. He just comes across as rather bogus.<<
  
  After all this time doing it I don't think it's bogus, though. If you play a role long enough you become the role.
  
  >>One of the most important qualities of a leader is to NOT give in to the worst impulses of a society, but the current regime seems to embody these impulses, not channel them. <<
  
  I don't think Bush would agree and I'm not sure that I do. I think his actions are motivated by a desire to do good, but things don't always work out the way he expects.
  
  >>This is one of the things that worries the USA's close friends and partners, particularly in Europe, as some of the reaction to US "initiatives" inevitably splashes over its close friends.
  
  If the USA then displays indifference to the messy splatter, who wouldn't be offended by that? Nobody would tolerate that kind of behaviour on a personal level, so why would it be acceptable on an international level where the stakes are so much higher?<<
  
  People here don't see the situation this way, though. We haven't asked the Europeans to come in and bail us out, or tried to dump our problems on them. But we also haven't rewarded them for not being supportive in the first place. Their response to that has been very petty. We apparently haven't shown them the 'respect' they think they deserve, but that's because we're showing them the respect they've earned, and they're not used to that.
  
  Dave
  

• 30 - alienboy

  Feb 13, 2005 at 8:09 pm

  So the coalition of the willing didn't primarily consist of Britain and other Europeans?
  
  Let's face it, even the USA isn't the power it once was. Just as the internet is democratising so much information that used to be that much harder to discover, by interconnecting everything, so the whole world is becoming more closely bound together.
  
  The USA is constantly asking other countries for support on all its initiatives but doesn't seem to understand it's a 2 way street.
  
  There are a LOT of great ideas being developed in the USA, and we all respect and appreciate the contribution. However, being young and gifted doesn't justify boorish behaviour.
  
  We don't have to earn your respect: firstly, we don't need it. there are more of us than there are of you and once europe's integration is more developed, you might find yourselves struggling to catch up with us! So it would be prudent to build alliances not stress them.
  
  secondly, showing respect is nothing more than an extension of courtesy and being so ill-mannered as to blow one's own trumpet so much gets real old real fast.
  
  The respect we've earned?
  
  Versus the respect you've earned?
  
  Interesting math possibly but where's it get us? We still have a hot, dangerous, polluted, hungry planet to sort out.

• 31 - DrPat

  Feb 13, 2005 at 8:39 pm

  There is a fallacy to perfectionism that argues "since we cannot do everything now, at once, perfectly and ideally, we should do nothing.
  
  Or to quote from memory, "Pick your battle and fight it to win. Then chose your next battle... The day you refuse that battle is the day you die. Believe me, there are a lot of dead men walking around, wondering where their ideals went." --John Cielewicsz

• 32 - alienboy

  Feb 17, 2005 at 8:08 am

  Dr Pat: Huh?