Rowan Williams weighs in on Britain staring into an abyss . . . with a comment or two about the current US administration: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...-are-peering-into-the-abyss-after-brexit-vote
Disillusionment with political process and messianic leadership . . .
- Thread starter Sope Creek
- Start date
The Rowan Williams quote which struck a cord with me went as follows:
“One of the things [the author] notes is the deep disillusion in politics, and the romantic, idealistic feeling that if we get the right leader, then things will change. As trust in conventional politics goes down, expectations of messianic leadership go up,” he said.
We seem to have lost faith in our institutions while expecting and hoping for a president to do the impossible. The impossible being to bring us all together in spite our deep divisions. The task is beyond any single office holder. Even the guy at the top.
“One of the things [the author] notes is the deep disillusion in politics, and the romantic, idealistic feeling that if we get the right leader, then things will change. As trust in conventional politics goes down, expectations of messianic leadership go up,” he said.
We seem to have lost faith in our institutions while expecting and hoping for a president to do the impossible. The impossible being to bring us all together in spite our deep divisions. The task is beyond any single office holder. Even the guy at the top.
The yearning for a Strong Man is infantile. It imagines that if only we had a "real" leader, we would promptly dissolve intractable problems through a pure exercise of will.
See, e.g., The Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency -- a contemporaneous critique of liberal claims that Barack Obama's 2009 compromises reflected a lack of presidential "will".
See, e.g., The Underpants Gnomes -- the gnomes have no idea why they're stealing underpants, but they're sure it will profit them.
"The will of my leadery leadership will defeat you!" #MAGA
The yearning for a Strong Man is infantile. It imagines that if only we had a "real" leader, we would promptly dissolve intractable problems through a pure exercise of will.
See, e.g., The Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency -- a contemporaneous critique of liberal claims that Barack Obama's 2009 compromises reflected a lack of presidential "will".
See, e.g., The Underpants Gnomes -- the gnomes have no idea why they're stealing underpants, but they're sure it will profit them.
"The will of my leadery leadership will defeat you!" #MAGA
I completely agree.
A masonic strong man president also contradicts the principles incorporated in our constitution. Principals which include three co-equal branches of government with a balance of powers.
Unfortunately, as I stated earlier, the loss of faith in the institutions incorporated in our constitution could lead us to wanting the impossible. The impossible being someone in the White House who doesn't exist with, or without, having to live within the limitations of the constitution.
Yep, that's the money quote from the piece linked. I thought about quoting it, but thought that the rest of the article was also worthy of a good read.
I hadn't been familiar with Williams until just very recently, even though he was Archbishop of Canterbury for a while. We're reading Williams' Resurrection, Interpreting The Easter Gospel in a theology book group that I'm in these days. We've read only the first chapter, and Williams' initial premises - Easter is about God's judgment of humans' judgment of each other, and one's salvation is in one's own memory of, and confrontation with, one's own victims - has already generated a lot of discussion and disagreement among some pretty well-read guys. One of the guys mentioned that Williams resigned from the archbishop position because he wasn't really called to do it; he took the job because of his ego (egged on by a number of friends). I thought that was interesting, so I thought googling him might be fruitful When I looked Williams up online the Guardian article jumped out first.
Step 3: PROFIT!The yearning for a Strong Man is infantile. It imagines that if only we had a "real" leader, we would promptly dissolve intractable problems through a pure exercise of will.
See, e.g., The Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency -- a contemporaneous critique of liberal claims that Barack Obama's 2009 compromises reflected a lack of presidential "will".
See, e.g., The Underpants Gnomes -- the gnomes have no idea why they're stealing underpants, but they're sure it will profit them.
"The will of my leadery leadership will defeat you!" #MAGA
The yearning for a Strong Man is infantile. It imagines that if only we had a "real" leader, we would promptly dissolve intractable problems through a pure exercise of will.
See, e.g., The Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency -- a contemporaneous critique of liberal claims that Barack Obama's 2009 compromises reflected a lack of presidential "will".
See, e.g., The Underpants Gnomes -- the gnomes have no idea why they're stealing underpants, but they're sure it will profit them.
"The will of my leadery leadership will defeat you!" #MAGA
Not propping Maher here, but since we're talking superheroes....
Congress is fixable (fix gerrymandering + some other election reform). You could gerrymander those to get more moderates in Congress, actually.
The media is a harder nut to crack, but hopefully better advertising data makes extremist media and click-bait much less profitable.
Believing POTUS is at the top is the single biggest problem with us. So long as we believe that, the divisions will become deeper and wider. Various POTUS's have campaigned on a message of healing our divisions and millions of voters bought that schtick. It ain't gonna happen. It can't happen unless we blow up the government, including the idea of having separate states, and start over.
So, you guys are going to keep voting for incompetent boobs unless/until we abrogate the Constitution and dissolve the Union? Good to see a Republican honestly expressing that neo-Confederate urge.
How you got some good sleep last night. That fit of distemper was a tad nasty.
BTW, a few years ago I floated the idea of adding a layer of government, which would include regions of states along the divisions represented by the West Reporter series (NE, SE, etc.) and perhaps coalitions of states acting in coordination regarding specific topics. For example, a region or a coalition of states would be able to negotiate prices with drug companies, or create heath insurance exchanges, or focus on light rail/ultra high speed rail programs.
The idea is to reduce the complexity of fully national politics while providing a framework likely to provide economies of scale approximating those provided by national government, but without requiring a nationwide application - unless all regions agree. Your post above reminded me of that approach as an option to blowing the whole thing up. Got any notions in that direction these days?
I like the idea. There are many reasons. Chief among those is the disbursement of power and money. There is entirely too much power, money, and influence and regulatory control in D.C. This tends to serve only those who wield power and influence and those who have the wherewithal to buy it. Another good reason is to regionalize solutions to problems instead of having a one-size-fits-all national solution. Another good reason is it would tend to limit the national government to those of true national or international importance instead of having a plethora of regional issues folded into national laws.
The concept has been tried and tested in many local areas of the country. In Colorado, new levels of government have been created to build sports stadiums, arts and cultural facilities, mass transit, water and sewer projects, libraries, and a hybrid entity to provide services to the developmentally disabled. Of course, education has used this model for 150 years or more. I see no logical reason why states could not join together to address issues that go beyond borders. The obvious first example would be transportation and energy infrastructure. I think this could be done by federal statute and would not require and amendment to the Constitution.
VanPastorMan
Hall of Famer
True conservatives don't want a Superman elected. They just want the constitution followed as it was originally intended. It doesn't take Superman to do that.
What was the original intent with regards to Internet privacy? In-vitro fertilization? Women's rights? Black rights?
