A brief treatment of authority figures I will do. Do I loose credibility for breaking the standard Subject-Verb-Object syntactical convention of the English language? If so, I’d like to propose an alternative. What if we lived in a world where our leaders where WRONG? That is to say, what if the people who we’ve most recognized (at least those of us cognizant enough to do so sometime in our lives) as the primary guiders for our conduct and thinking were not the desirable? Hitler, ever discussed about in literature about leadership, had the turn of people’s whims like this. A misguided authority only tells us who assigned him such a position of our own follies. Sure, it’s been true and acknowledge far back as Biblical times and very much likely long before, that man is not the almighty. One person I have looked towards for some insight is world-renowned, U.S . political critic and MIT Professor Noam Chomsky; in an interview posted in democracynow.com, he admitted (along with some who shared his opinion) that he was wrong about Bernie Sanders (who I believe he Chomsky thought he wasn’t as different on his political stance as some thought he was [i.e. being a kind of democratic radical]). This was a kind of relief for me, because although I believed he had some issues in some of his arguments, it was a kind of “full-circle” moment to know he admitted one himself. Where I’d like to go is this: what would leadership be like if our leaders admitted to being more faulty than we think they are or that they present to themselves to be. Could “leadership” be possible in such a cognition awakened to the fact of human fallibility? (side note: it’s also interesting to think about why humans imagined themselves as being “right” [or wrong] at all).
Here is where some might point to Christ, as in, Jesus Christ, but was he the leader admitting fault in and of himself? Some would say although we cast light on the many errors that humans make, he was more a figurehead for the real leader than a leader in and of himself, and if I’m not mistaken (although I absolutely could be, I haven’t read or researched much on the Bible [though I should just google this uncertainty for an answer]) God never admitted fault of his ways or asked anyone for forgiveness or the like for errors made, no? As expect from short research, the answers aren’t clear. However, if we ask Niccolo Machiavelli, he would tell us to go f’ ourselves and further consolidate his power by punishing us; that’s a double whammy for mankind, maybe even a triple whammy for Machiavelli himself.
I have seen that much room is made for authorities who recognize their errors, except perhaps in science very quietly for the few in the masses who recognize error is part of the process for establishing truths. Someone once told me that the best authority is one for no authority. Is this like anarchy? Or like the Governor Veto/2016 Libertarian Presidential candidate, Gary Johnson? I’ve not come to a conclusion on these things, though I hope that bringing to light the component of humility and honesty in leaderly affairs might lead us to one day we can all be leader, and all are, which should simultaneously empower us to do more together….
Or would did this just encourage us to designate some as more leaderly than others, like today, and nothing changes? I don’t know. I will ponder the answers, as too the questions.
Sources read concerning God’s mistake making:
- https://gotquestions.org/does-God-make-mistakes.html
- https://lifehopeandtruth.com/god/who-is-god/genesis-6/
- http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_mistakes_made_by_God