Bully Pulpit: A sequel to “The Democracy Attitude” blog.
A reader of my earlier blog on “The Democracy Attitude,” took exception to something I wrote. I decided merely logging in a “comment” at the foot of that blog would be too terse to handle my added thoughts. So here is a sequel.
To introduce this addendum, I reiterate my thesis: Participatory government--government by the people--makes accessible a deep reservoir of wisdom and resources. As colonialists, we found that rule by a distant Parliament in which we had no voice, and a king insensitive to our interests did not suit us. Our “democratic attitude” inspired our Rebellion and set the foundation stone of our new government. The energy and vitality that this concept induces, explains our rise to prosperity and international influence. I then took this thesis and related it to the current terrorist crisis we are now facing. My conclusion was that we are selling our strengths short by succumbing to fear and desperate military action as our means of response to the terrorist bullies.
At this point, my interested reader reacted forcefully by labeling my point about how to handle “bullies” as idealistic. If we don’t rise to the fight, he said, we will take a pounding before help arrives. Any efforts to talk the bully out of slugging us won’t work, so we have only the choice of cowardly running away, or fighting. Fighting is the “better” solution, because running is a failure of courage.
The problem with this answer is that it assumes the test of “better” is “courage.” I say courage is for the action phase, after what is “better“ has been decided. Planning and making choices is not courage‘s thing. Courage cannot guarantee to make things “work” or turn out well. So depending upon courage to make up for bad decisions is irresponsible leadership, to say it politely. But we can argue courage in another blog. My point was that a “democracy attitude” is more powerful than a “meet me in the alley” attitude--and ultimately more realistic. I am not idealistic at all. Here is why.
The commenter referenced the survival-on-the-playground experience to which we all can relate. My playground experience taught me the importance of keeping an eye on the troublemaker so as not to be blindsided. But I also learned that alertness combined with agility can easily make the muscle-bound hulk irrelevant. Sidestepping is always an available, even honorable, strategy at the moment of challenge. In fact, a slippery, evasive runner on the football field, or the basketball player who is good in traffic, is admired for this superior physical skill.
Then, too, I have also observed that the bully is normally surrounded by the weak, the blind, and assorted sycophants. The more fight-prone the bully is, the fewer quality friends he has. He is always on a bankrupt course, because he inevitably isolates himself from the playground population by his abrasive personality and careening techniques. He will have his moments of sway, but only to the extent that the rest of us, the majority, are caught off-guard or live in a stupor. There is no greater failure a tormentor can endure than the failure to scare up anyone who will fight him. He creates a scene because it gives him apparent standing when otherwise he is irrelevant. Bullies need to be contained because they are ticking explosive devices, but a little cleverness, off-stage, is startlingly successful against them. The best way to hamstring a bully is to fight him in ways he knows nothing about.
Allow me to diverge with personal testimony about how I have applied my playground diploma on different terrain. I have had three experiences on the highway with road-rage over fender-bender incidents. In one I was physically handled; in another my antagonist pounded my car because I wouldn’t roll down my window; in the third the other guy invited me to step behind his truck to settle the argument decisively. I defused each incident without as much as raising my hand, yet without backing off. I simply used a weapon my opponents were not counting on and knew nothing about. I rendered them helpless before me. I ignored them. Their fuse fizzled out for lack of oxygen. This real account displays only one method, but it highlights the basic poverty of the standard bully’s repertoire.
Bullies depend on their personal power of intimidation. Intimidation is an attitude. Each of us has the power, from birth, to choose our attitudes. Because of unfortunate parentage, dysfunctional upbringing, physical or mental handicaps, or wrenching bad luck, millions of us know little else than powerlessness and chronic defeat. We need the help of those who have attained position and wisdom. Our bullies need to be handled for us. But that is what leaders are for. If we have not learned yet how to direct the energy of our attitudes, we can always gravitate intentionally toward (and vote for) those who understand this advanced power. Attitude costs nothing; it is free. It only needs to be adopted (or befriended). We choose it, and it goes to work. Once we commit ourselves to an attitude, it operates automatically and effortlessly. You just tune it in and it melts the opposition, for good or bad. (I‘m not talking here about name-it-and-claim-it materialism.)
Here is how it works. Because a good attitude is sunny and open, it recognizes synchronicities that bad attitudes miss. A good attitude “lets the game come to it.” This confidence frees it to be counter intuitive when this is useful--an approach Muhammad Ali used to good effect with his rope-a-dope tactic--yielding to a disadvantage while waiting for opportunity to show itself. Democracy and “good attitude” are natural confederates. Both are high-minded, relaxed yet energized, interactive, and confident (of assets and potentialities).
A bad attitude can be very intimidating, but only where there is no challenge from competing (stronger) attitudes. With a bad attitude, one can easily create destruction and damage. But a good attitude has greater attractive power and ultimately greater resources. We all know this; we just forget it at the moment of an emotional hit.
One historical example will nail the point--an example of poignant victimization. In his autobiography Frederick Douglass, an enslaved African American in our pre-Civil War South, tells of his experience of loss of identity and brutal treatment at the hands of a cruel master. After one particularly severe beating, he had an epiphany, a moment of clarity. He saw he had a choice of acquiescence or rebellion. He knew he could not win by physical confrontation. But he could choose the “attitude” of rebellion and edge his way toward other methods, methods supported by crowds of people (once educated to the idea). As a run-away, he attached himself to like-minded rebels, the anti-slavery group, and became a sensational, national speaker. Eventually his legal freedom was bought for him by friends, and he was looked to for singular attitude leadership.
John Brown, a white rebel against slavery with an “attitude” problem, solicited Douglass’ assistance in a planned armed uprising. Douglass recognized the folly of this approach and refused to give aid in this way. (Brown had courage; Douglass had wisdom.)
The fight against slavery, though, escalated into civil war, as other immature national leaders allowed us to slip into armed combat. Abraham Lincoln found himself President with a nation torn apart, his hands tied by the responsibilities of his job as commander-in-chief. But he clearly was a leader with an “attitude” closer to that of the real victim--Frederick Douglass--than the bully John Brown. Yes, Brown was a classic bully (check on his Kansas murders), even though he claimed a good cause. He ended where all bullies end, in ignominy. Lincoln, on the other hand, was elevated to international admiration by his “attitude” of malice toward none.
Meanwhile, the Union government ended legal slavery after conquest in battle, but it did not defeat it. The real issue, discrimination and victimization, still is alive and stirring. The “democracy attitude” has means for dealing with this problem, just as it has means for dealing with today’s international “terrorist” problem. It remains to be seen whether America has gained enough maturity to recognize the power of civic saintliness in contrast to the bankruptcy of belligerence, and whether today we know a Lincoln (who hated war and knew how to publicly model commiseration) when we see one.
At least the grantors of the Nobel Peace Prize knew the difference between a Martin Luther King, Jr., and a John Brown, and the contrast between an Al Gore and a George W. Bush.
Al Gore would be well advised not to run for President again; he could end up as agonized over the constraints of his job definition as Lincoln did. He clearly has the “democracy attitude,” as is evident in his recent book, The Assault On Reason.
Victory over bullies calls for visionaries, not heroes. Our leaders are chosen by election, so our future depends on enlightened, savvy, mature citizens whose “attitudes” are bedded in democracy, not in a culture of cowboy gun-slinging. Bullies only have “power” by our permission. When bullies threaten, even the President cannot save us by a fighting attitude. As a people, we may prevail by applying “attitude” resources that are not wired to threats. But we must first be virtuous and able to recognize the power of our virtue when the President and an uncommitted Congress fail us. An early step would be to vote for a “democracy attitude” President, one who does not make decisions in his drawing room, but turns to the people where the strength of our system lies. Lincoln provided the template. He was not merely a war President, nor a mere idealist. He did not just save us from slaveholding bullies. He consciously embroidered his crisis leadership, start to finish, with an “attitude” that struck a resounding blow against pessimism, cynicism, and moral anemia. He knew these were more serious threats to democracy than slaveholding bullies. He was not overcome by the desperations of the moment. Were he alive today, I believe he would have the same opinion about our terrorist bullies.
Knowledgeable Christians might remember that fight-happy Peter was not in charge of the trump card at the Garden of Gethsemane attitude-moment. To draw a parallel, the Bush Administration Iraq policy, rather than being a reflection of crucifixion Christianity, might be accurately tagged as “Petrianity at work.” It seems to be working as well as Peter’s playground strategy. Christ exercised no bully pulpit attitude. Which approach do you think was realistic, and more effective?
(P.S. Please note that in none of the above am I arguing for inaction; I stand for aggressive, but responsible, mature, hence practical, action.)
Doug Good
To introduce this addendum, I reiterate my thesis: Participatory government--government by the people--makes accessible a deep reservoir of wisdom and resources. As colonialists, we found that rule by a distant Parliament in which we had no voice, and a king insensitive to our interests did not suit us. Our “democratic attitude” inspired our Rebellion and set the foundation stone of our new government. The energy and vitality that this concept induces, explains our rise to prosperity and international influence. I then took this thesis and related it to the current terrorist crisis we are now facing. My conclusion was that we are selling our strengths short by succumbing to fear and desperate military action as our means of response to the terrorist bullies.
At this point, my interested reader reacted forcefully by labeling my point about how to handle “bullies” as idealistic. If we don’t rise to the fight, he said, we will take a pounding before help arrives. Any efforts to talk the bully out of slugging us won’t work, so we have only the choice of cowardly running away, or fighting. Fighting is the “better” solution, because running is a failure of courage.
The problem with this answer is that it assumes the test of “better” is “courage.” I say courage is for the action phase, after what is “better“ has been decided. Planning and making choices is not courage‘s thing. Courage cannot guarantee to make things “work” or turn out well. So depending upon courage to make up for bad decisions is irresponsible leadership, to say it politely. But we can argue courage in another blog. My point was that a “democracy attitude” is more powerful than a “meet me in the alley” attitude--and ultimately more realistic. I am not idealistic at all. Here is why.
The commenter referenced the survival-on-the-playground experience to which we all can relate. My playground experience taught me the importance of keeping an eye on the troublemaker so as not to be blindsided. But I also learned that alertness combined with agility can easily make the muscle-bound hulk irrelevant. Sidestepping is always an available, even honorable, strategy at the moment of challenge. In fact, a slippery, evasive runner on the football field, or the basketball player who is good in traffic, is admired for this superior physical skill.
Then, too, I have also observed that the bully is normally surrounded by the weak, the blind, and assorted sycophants. The more fight-prone the bully is, the fewer quality friends he has. He is always on a bankrupt course, because he inevitably isolates himself from the playground population by his abrasive personality and careening techniques. He will have his moments of sway, but only to the extent that the rest of us, the majority, are caught off-guard or live in a stupor. There is no greater failure a tormentor can endure than the failure to scare up anyone who will fight him. He creates a scene because it gives him apparent standing when otherwise he is irrelevant. Bullies need to be contained because they are ticking explosive devices, but a little cleverness, off-stage, is startlingly successful against them. The best way to hamstring a bully is to fight him in ways he knows nothing about.
Allow me to diverge with personal testimony about how I have applied my playground diploma on different terrain. I have had three experiences on the highway with road-rage over fender-bender incidents. In one I was physically handled; in another my antagonist pounded my car because I wouldn’t roll down my window; in the third the other guy invited me to step behind his truck to settle the argument decisively. I defused each incident without as much as raising my hand, yet without backing off. I simply used a weapon my opponents were not counting on and knew nothing about. I rendered them helpless before me. I ignored them. Their fuse fizzled out for lack of oxygen. This real account displays only one method, but it highlights the basic poverty of the standard bully’s repertoire.
Bullies depend on their personal power of intimidation. Intimidation is an attitude. Each of us has the power, from birth, to choose our attitudes. Because of unfortunate parentage, dysfunctional upbringing, physical or mental handicaps, or wrenching bad luck, millions of us know little else than powerlessness and chronic defeat. We need the help of those who have attained position and wisdom. Our bullies need to be handled for us. But that is what leaders are for. If we have not learned yet how to direct the energy of our attitudes, we can always gravitate intentionally toward (and vote for) those who understand this advanced power. Attitude costs nothing; it is free. It only needs to be adopted (or befriended). We choose it, and it goes to work. Once we commit ourselves to an attitude, it operates automatically and effortlessly. You just tune it in and it melts the opposition, for good or bad. (I‘m not talking here about name-it-and-claim-it materialism.)
Here is how it works. Because a good attitude is sunny and open, it recognizes synchronicities that bad attitudes miss. A good attitude “lets the game come to it.” This confidence frees it to be counter intuitive when this is useful--an approach Muhammad Ali used to good effect with his rope-a-dope tactic--yielding to a disadvantage while waiting for opportunity to show itself. Democracy and “good attitude” are natural confederates. Both are high-minded, relaxed yet energized, interactive, and confident (of assets and potentialities).
A bad attitude can be very intimidating, but only where there is no challenge from competing (stronger) attitudes. With a bad attitude, one can easily create destruction and damage. But a good attitude has greater attractive power and ultimately greater resources. We all know this; we just forget it at the moment of an emotional hit.
One historical example will nail the point--an example of poignant victimization. In his autobiography Frederick Douglass, an enslaved African American in our pre-Civil War South, tells of his experience of loss of identity and brutal treatment at the hands of a cruel master. After one particularly severe beating, he had an epiphany, a moment of clarity. He saw he had a choice of acquiescence or rebellion. He knew he could not win by physical confrontation. But he could choose the “attitude” of rebellion and edge his way toward other methods, methods supported by crowds of people (once educated to the idea). As a run-away, he attached himself to like-minded rebels, the anti-slavery group, and became a sensational, national speaker. Eventually his legal freedom was bought for him by friends, and he was looked to for singular attitude leadership.
John Brown, a white rebel against slavery with an “attitude” problem, solicited Douglass’ assistance in a planned armed uprising. Douglass recognized the folly of this approach and refused to give aid in this way. (Brown had courage; Douglass had wisdom.)
The fight against slavery, though, escalated into civil war, as other immature national leaders allowed us to slip into armed combat. Abraham Lincoln found himself President with a nation torn apart, his hands tied by the responsibilities of his job as commander-in-chief. But he clearly was a leader with an “attitude” closer to that of the real victim--Frederick Douglass--than the bully John Brown. Yes, Brown was a classic bully (check on his Kansas murders), even though he claimed a good cause. He ended where all bullies end, in ignominy. Lincoln, on the other hand, was elevated to international admiration by his “attitude” of malice toward none.
Meanwhile, the Union government ended legal slavery after conquest in battle, but it did not defeat it. The real issue, discrimination and victimization, still is alive and stirring. The “democracy attitude” has means for dealing with this problem, just as it has means for dealing with today’s international “terrorist” problem. It remains to be seen whether America has gained enough maturity to recognize the power of civic saintliness in contrast to the bankruptcy of belligerence, and whether today we know a Lincoln (who hated war and knew how to publicly model commiseration) when we see one.
At least the grantors of the Nobel Peace Prize knew the difference between a Martin Luther King, Jr., and a John Brown, and the contrast between an Al Gore and a George W. Bush.
Al Gore would be well advised not to run for President again; he could end up as agonized over the constraints of his job definition as Lincoln did. He clearly has the “democracy attitude,” as is evident in his recent book, The Assault On Reason.
Victory over bullies calls for visionaries, not heroes. Our leaders are chosen by election, so our future depends on enlightened, savvy, mature citizens whose “attitudes” are bedded in democracy, not in a culture of cowboy gun-slinging. Bullies only have “power” by our permission. When bullies threaten, even the President cannot save us by a fighting attitude. As a people, we may prevail by applying “attitude” resources that are not wired to threats. But we must first be virtuous and able to recognize the power of our virtue when the President and an uncommitted Congress fail us. An early step would be to vote for a “democracy attitude” President, one who does not make decisions in his drawing room, but turns to the people where the strength of our system lies. Lincoln provided the template. He was not merely a war President, nor a mere idealist. He did not just save us from slaveholding bullies. He consciously embroidered his crisis leadership, start to finish, with an “attitude” that struck a resounding blow against pessimism, cynicism, and moral anemia. He knew these were more serious threats to democracy than slaveholding bullies. He was not overcome by the desperations of the moment. Were he alive today, I believe he would have the same opinion about our terrorist bullies.
Knowledgeable Christians might remember that fight-happy Peter was not in charge of the trump card at the Garden of Gethsemane attitude-moment. To draw a parallel, the Bush Administration Iraq policy, rather than being a reflection of crucifixion Christianity, might be accurately tagged as “Petrianity at work.” It seems to be working as well as Peter’s playground strategy. Christ exercised no bully pulpit attitude. Which approach do you think was realistic, and more effective?
(P.S. Please note that in none of the above am I arguing for inaction; I stand for aggressive, but responsible, mature, hence practical, action.)
Doug Good
Labels: Al Gore, Apostle Peter, Bullies, Democracy, Founding Fathers, Frederick Douglas, George W. Bush, Iraq war, Jesus Christ, John Brown, Muhammad Ali, Terrorism
posted by Doug at
10:42 PM
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