Friday, October 31, 2014

WOUNDED LEADERS: A Book Review

(I posted this a while ago on The Buddha Diaries.  It also appeared on The Huffington Post.  But it seems appropriate here… PC)


First, don’t assume from this book’s subtitle that is irrelevant to us here in America, or to our leadership.  It is of vital relevance, no matter the specificity of his target.  Nick Duffell’s title will have resonance for anyone who has lived through the past couple of decades in America and watched our own wounded
leaders in action--or, more correctly, inaction.  That said--and we'll come back to this--his central argument is that the boarding-school educated governing elite in Britain are themselves unconsciously governed by the lasting wounds incurred by the experience of being sent away from the family at an early age, and placed in a militaristic environment in which they learn to protect themselves from a hostile outer world.  

I can speak to this.  I am what Duffell aptly refers to as a Boarding School Survivor.  As a practicing psychotherapist, he has a long-standing practice designed to bring such people back from their emotional disorientation and isolation.  I could have used his services, long ago, but had to discover my own path through this maze.  I was sent away to school at the age of seven, and by the time I escaped to freedom at the age of eighteen, I had received a remarkable head-oriented education but remained what I often describe as an emotional cripple.  I had learned the costly and dangerous art of evasion and emotional invulnerability.  As a seven- or eight-year old, I could not afford to do anything but suppress the feelings that would open me up to attack from my fellow-boarders: fear, anger, sadness, grief, the terrible pain of being separated from parents who assured me that they loved me—even though it was hard to understand the paradox of being loved and yet exiled from the family, the locus of that love.

The result of my excellent education was that I never grew up.  Rather, it took me another three decades before I realized there was something wrong with living like a turtle in a shell.  Boarding School Survivors, as Duffell describes them, are stunted individuals so caught up in their heads that they remain disconnected from their hearts.  I simplify his profoundly well-informed and subtle arguments, whose bottom line is that Britain’s ruling elite, boarding-school and Oxbridge-educated, are supremely unqualified to lead in our twenty-first century world because they get so intently focused on their distorted, rational vision of national and global issues that they remain impervious (invulnerable) to the bigger picture of human needs.  They are unable to listen, to empathize with others than themselves and their own kind.  They are guided by the certainty of their own sense of rectitude.  To doubt, to question, to have a change of heart is to be vulnerable, and vulnerability is the last thing in the world they can allow themselves.  (Duffell’s final chapter, on doubt, is particularly eloquent and on-target.)

I am admittedly unqualified to evaluate the more technical aspects of Duffell’s argument.  To this reader, he seems impressively knowledgeable and up-to-date with the latest discoveries of neuroscience and academic psychology.  He draws on a broad understanding of the philosophical development of rationalism and its critics, the countervailing social movements of repression and rebellion, and contextualizes his argument in that historical perspective.  In our contemporary times, his exemplars are primarily the likes of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, England’s current Prime Minister David Cameron, and London Mayor Boris Johnson, whose attitudes and actions are profoundly—and in Duffell’s view—mistakenly reactionary.  As he sees it, they bully and bluster their way past opposition into futile military actions and social programs that enrich the already privileged and wealthy and contribute to the continuing impoverishment of the needy.  No wonder the England he describes is an angry country.

Late in the book, Duffell expands his vision of an entitled elite to include brief reference to American leaders—in particular, of course, George W. Bush, whose blind and reckless pursuit of a delusory obsession rushed us headlong into the war with Iraq.  The disastrous results are with us today, in the form of a Middle East in unending turmoil.  Looking at America today—a nation of people surely as angry as the British—I’d argue that what Duffell calls the Entitlement Illusion is by no means limited to British elitism.  Our leaders must also be counted amongst the wounded.  Our leadership is dominated by the squabbling of little boys who have never grown beyond the need to protect themselves and their own territory from those who do not agree with them.  Our political problems are the same as those Duffell describes in his country: militarism, misguided and prejudicial rationalism, a lack of empathy for the poor and underprivileged, an assumption of rectitude that rejects other views without a hearing, an angry rejection of doubt or reappraisal of previously held views.

Entitlement, I’d argue, is not the exclusive property of the British elite.  I myself believe it’s also, more broadly, a factor of historical male privilege, the patriarchal tradition.  There is a persistent myth in our culture that sees men as rational beings, in control of events, capable, practical, while women are (still, in the eyes of too many of us men) perceived as irrational, guided by emotion rather than reason, and therefore less competent in leadership positions.  Duffell argues passionately for a middle path, one that minimizes neither reason nor emotion, but balances the intelligence quotient with the emotional quotient, the head with the heart, reason with compassion and empathy.  I agree with him, that unless we as a species can find that balance, we are in for dangerous times ahead.  His book is a timely and important reminder of the need to “change our minds” in a fundamental way, and open ourselves to the powerful--and practical--wisdom of the heart.  I sincerely hope that the book will find readers beyond the native country of which he writes.  Its insights are profoundly needed everywhere, throughout the globe.




Thursday, October 30, 2014

LOST MAN

An intriguing news item: a middle-aged man attends a Denver Bronco football game. At half-time, he simply disappears--with, apparently, no credit card, little cash, and only the clothes he's wearing.  He has no mobile, and therefore can't be reached by phone.  Police efforts to trace him as a missing person fail to find him. His disappearance attracts national media attention: CNN, Fox News, ESPN all carry the story, but apparently he's not watching television news…

A week goes by before he finally shows up.  A man "fitting his description" is found in a Kmart parking lot, a hundred miles from the site of his disappearance.  Police reported that he was found in good health, "speaking and answering questions intelligibly that were asked of him."  Without any personal means of transportation, he seemingly walked for most the the hundred miles.  His explanation: that he'd gotten bored with the football game and decided to go for a walk.  He was looking for "somewhere warmer" and had been sleeping in "tree'ed areas and bushes" along the way.

Paul Kitterman, Broncos fan
My fantasy?  The man's a delightful dreamer.  I like his generous mustache, and the crow's feet that seem caused more by good humor rather than age.  (Oh, yes, he's only 53.)  I can't blame him for leaving the football game: the last one I saw myself was a total bore.  Now that the NFL is so thoroughly commercialized, there seems to be an interminable wait between every play while the television stations air their ads.  The actual action on the field is pretty minimal and predictable.  So much for football.  It would take an awful lot of self-supplied testosterone to get a kick out of it.

But look at his smile.  Beatific, almost, wouldn't you say? He's happy to have his back to the football field behind him.  What are they doing, anyway?  Measuring the yardage?  Moving the chains?  The men in black seen strolling across the field give a sense of suspended action.  And look at those half-empty stands.  Not a great deal of excitement there, either.

So he left.  Wandered off.  Found more interesting and engaging things in his own head.  A hundred-mile walk!  What a concept!  I imagine him strolling off with his beatific smile through the parking lot and out into the surrounding neighborhood.  He barely notices his fellow pedestrians, let alone the cars.  He's happy when he finally reaches the edge of the suburbs and strides out into the countryside.  He breathes in the air, finally unleashed from the city's grip, feeling better than he has for years.  He's alone.  No one to talk with, no one to talk at him.  No bad news to be subjected to!  No ISIS!  No election politics!  No hatred and contention!  A kind of ecstasy…

If it feels so good, then why go back?  What better than to keep on going, into the dusk, the twilight, soon the night?  What better than to make a bed amongst the fragrant pine needles, perhaps looking up into the starlit sky?  To fall asleep untrammeled by the usual trappings of the civilized life!  To wake, at dawn, to the sound of birds?  Ah, this is living…

I'm probably romanticizing.  Maybe the poor guy had a hell of a week, fighting off the cold and hunger.  He had little enough money, no credit cards, how could he have even stopped at wayside restaurants to eat?  Perhaps he got tired of the dirty clothes and the sore feet.  Still, no sign that he was begging for help when he was "found."  No sign of physical or mental distress.  Was his dream shattered by his discovery?  Was he secretly hoping NEVER to "go home"?

There's no telling, of course.  All I have are the media reports.  He'll probably show up on the Today Show in a few days' time, to be interviewed by Matt Lauer about his wayward ways.  But I hope not.  I hope that he stays silent.  And I hope he never loses that beatific smile.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

THE POLITICAL SCHTICK: Theater Review

In New York last week, I made it a point (no pun intended!) to see “Tail! Spin!”, a hilarious political satire on our wayward politicians and their penises.  You’ll remember Anthony Wiener’s infamous—and virally viewed—selfie (“I was hacked,” he moaned); and Larry Craig’s “wide stance” in the airport men’s room; and Mark Foley’s predilection for congressional pages; and Mark Sanford’s trek on the Appalachian Trail.  Here they are, all four of them, in their own self-righteous words,   It’s a riot. impeccably re-enacted by a fabulous cast, with all their excuses and explanations, their
deflections and--finally--their unconvincing, if abject apologies.
Okay, it’s a riot.  But it’s really a pretty sad tale.  We men—you women may have noticed—seem to have a hard time controlling our libidos.  Or no, it’s not really a matter of “control”, it’s more a matter of knowing how to use our sexual gifts joyfully, to the appropriate satisfaction of our natural impulses and those of our partners; and of knowing how to do so without causing pain to those we love or to ourselves.  It’s not the penis that’s at fault, it’s the way that it’s handled (again, please, no pun intended!)

We do love to hate our politicians.  We have reason to hold a good number of them in contempt.  Our current flock is notably incompetent.  Inflexible, humorless, pontificating, phony-patriotic, self-assured in the worst possible way, they seem incapable of the kind of action we expect from our elected leaders.  The “system” is in part to blame: they spend a great deal of their time prostrated at the altar of money, incurring indebtedness to the wealthiest donors who naturally expect something in return.  But it’s the same system that attracts the kind of “professionals” who neglect the needs of those they are supposed to serve in favor of their own self-interest—which primarily takes the form ego satisfaction and eventual re-election.

Still, these four guys and their penises…  They are properly skewered in “Tail! Spin!”, and by nothing other than their own venality.  It requires little clowning on the part of the actors to make them look at once pathetic and absurd.  The male cast—Arnie Burton, Sean Dugan, Nate Smith and Tom Galantich as the principals—are ably assisted by assisted by Rachel Dratch...
of SNL fame, who plays a series of dubiously dutiful wives as well as a truly hysterical Barbara Walters.  The action is enlivened as each of the principals jumps into roles other than his own: we have lawyers and journalists, page boys and fellow congressmen all joining in the farce.  The set has the familiar appearance of the debate stage, but the podia are no more than props for lively antics.

We laugh at them all, but remain painfully aware of the damage wrought by such men not only on the rapidly eroding trust in our political lives, but particularly on their suffering families and wives.   Their overweening arrogance, their apparently unshakeable belief in their own invulnerability, their contempt for everything but the satisfaction of their own lust, is not only laughable—but appalling.  Regrettably, such exemplars of our sex also ask us men to take a good look in the mirror and see the (somewhat distorted) reflection of our own libidinous selves!  If we’re not conscious how we use it, the penis has a lot to answer for. 

Eventually, though, it’s all about power, isn’t it?  It’s about men who, out of their own desperate insecurity about their manhood, need to assert false dominance—and mistake the penis for the proper means to do it.  Submit to my rod, submit to my rule.  That’s the tragedy behind this farce.