The Fabrication Of Unworth

     Yes, yes, your Curmudgeon knows perfectly well it should be “unworthiness.” But essay titles are special around here. We use them to draw attention, to stimulate thought, and – on occasion – to elicit a laugh or two. Especially on those occasions when we’re striving not to be “stuffed shirts.”

     Say, how long has it been since you last heard that particular idiom? It’s been a while, no doubt. Yet it has a lot of wear left in it. The image embedded in the phrase is rather evocative: a man straining to look like more than he really is. It applies to quite a lot of people in the public eye… which, come to think of it, is probably why they’ve sought to be “in the public eye:” to posture as more important than those around him.

     Public attention, however garnered, has an enlarging effect – and no, it’s not just that “the camera adds ten pounds,” though it does that as well. The common man looks at one whom the reporters and talking heads have focused on and concludes, subliminally at least: “He matters.” We seldom complete the sentence explicitly: “…and I don’t.” But the thought is there. It lodges in the substratum of our brains, molding our attitudes and conditioning our responses to developments without our conscious awareness.

     It’s an important part of the illusion of power. Kings sought the attention of nobles and fawning courtiers to reassure them that they were great. Contemporary politicians have a similar sort of retinue for the same reason. Moreover, the effect is bidirectional, albeit asymmetrically so. The nobles and courtiers, the reporters and talking heads, gain a little self-regard from the “great one’s” choice of them: to speak to them, issue pronouncements through them, and generally to keep company with them.

     The critical aspects of this phenomenon are two:

1. It’s illusory;
2. It’s relative.

     Two weeks ago, that Fran person wrote:

     No individual “leader” can have much power in and of himself. His power arises from the number and quality of his followers: those who will go where he points and do what he commands.

     But if the “leader’s” power comes from his followers, where does the greatness – if any – truly reside?

     Think about that for a moment or two.

     A favorite quote by George Herron is relevant this morning:

     The possession of power over others is inherently destructive both to the possessor of power and to those over whom it is exercised. And the great man of the future, in distinction from the great man of the past, is he who will seek to create power in people, and not gain power over them. The great man of the future is he who will refuse to be great at all, in the historic sense; he is the man who will literally lose himself, who will altogether diffuse himself in the life of humanity.

     Great men – leaders of significant stature – have seldom been of that sort. Historically they’ve marshaled others to do their bidding, and the “others” have gone forth to do it. Few have “created power in people;” rather, they’ve exploited the power the people already possess. George Herron would think little of them.

     That is the illusory aspect of the great man’s power. None of it is properly his. The relative aspect is in his supposed greatness: it arises solely from others’ willingness to follow him.

     Lao Tzu’s statement about leaders and leadership is relevant here.

     As is his habit, your Curmudgeon has been circling his point like an aircraft that’s been stuck for hours in a jammed-up traffic pattern. But the time has come to land this plane. Will it wobble and bounce along the runway, or will its landing be a grease-smooth marvel? We shall see.

     Leadership in our era is almost entirely a fabrication. Some man rises a little above the average, starts to think well of himself, and solicits attention. Something he does or says catches the eyes of a few media types. As they’re always hungry for new fodder, they fix their cameras on him, and his perceived stature starts to rise. If he’s lucky, the media attention brings more opportunities his way. If he’s really lucky, he does well with them and by them. The reporters and talking heads now have an “up-and-comer” to report on. Those who noticed him first get special treatment, and rise above their colleagues in occupational altitude.

     But what has this embryonic great man really done? He probably had vision. He convinced others to subscribe to it, whether with money, thought, or labor. Those things do deserve some plaudits. But his greatness, if he’s ever deemed to possess it, will have arisen from the willingness of those others to follow him, and from their willing application of their assets to his vision. The stature of the media figures who rose by hanging on to his coattails is twice derivative and even more illusory. He and they have borrowed the greatness of those who elected to follow him. All the objective achievements are really theirs.

     Yet those followers are likely to feel a non sum dignus humility before the great man himself. G. K. Chesterton remarked on this:

     There runs a strange law through the length of human history—that men are continually tending to undervalue their environment, to undervalue their happiness, to undervalue themselves. The great sin of mankind, the sin typified by the fall of Adam, is the tendency, not towards pride, but towards this weird and horrible humility.

     The “weird and horrible humility” spoken of above is not the Christian virtue of humility. Rather, it’s a fabrication: an unjustified self-diminution or abasement that arises from the perceived greater stature of others. Yet in truth, a share of greatness attaches deservedly to every man who has contributed to a great achievement.

     This provides illumination to George Herron’s thesis, wouldn’t you say?

     In sum: Do not let anyone or anything make you feel unworthy. To whatever extent you contribute, or have contributed, to any worthy achievement, you are great. In your contribution, whatever form it took, you touched greatness and made it yours. Of course, others did so as well, for which reason humility in the Christian sense – i.e., to take only justified pride in your efforts, while allowing that others are equally worthy – is paramount in these times.

     Happy New Year. Don’t let the “leaders” and “great men” put one over on you. Your Curmudgeon has spoken.