Wednesday, November 28, 2007 - Posts
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The study Ann mentioned, which suggests that power erodes empathy, explains all those celebrity interviews that make you cringe for the person and think, "Doesn't he know how that sounds?'' No, he doesn't. Which might be an argument against political dynasties—and for term limits, as well as for the capital gains tax. Yet empathy is a complicated thing; it's innate, surely, to some degree, but also learned and in some cases unlearned, and variable over time. My sister, who lives in Los Angeles, is not a scientist but has done field work all the same, as the owner of a clothing shop she thinks of as "very relaxed''—meaning that you needn't be a size 2 to shop there. Anyway, she reports that while pretty much everyone seems to lose perspective right after becoming famous, many do regain their equilibrium. J's rule of thumb: Three years of crazy is about par, after which normal people go back to behaving normally.
Which is kind of a wonder, given that we as a culture—and certainly as voters—tend to value empathy most in those who show plenty of toughness as well. Sure, we liked Bill Clinton's natural ability to feel for others, but wasn't that only because we also knew him to be capable of a certain ruthlessness? He gained support, after all, after sending a brain-damaged man, Rickey Ray Rector, to his death in Arkansas in 1992. Clinton's decision against a stay of execution, even for a man so severely disabled he saved the cherry pie from his last meal "for later,'' showed he was not soft on crime. Our reaction suggests we found that reassuring.
So, while we like Oprah's "favorite guy" Obama and his whole multiculti capacity to feel where all of us are coming from, we worry, too—essentially, whether he is jerk enough for the job. And maybe that's the quality those underappreciated women elected to run villages in India lacked; today's "Dismal Science" piece reports that female leaders there were routinely judged more harshly than their male counterparts, even by other women, and even when by all objective measures, the female leaders did a better job.
I bridle at the notion that "we're hardest on our own," but that doesn't mean we haven't been trained to respond differently to men; just yesterday, I needed to see my doctor urgently, couldn't get an appointment, and so in desperation showed up in his office without one, but with my husband in tow—not so much for moral support as because I thought the sight of a man who had taken the day off work might get action. It did, and he was amazed at the way the whole attitude in the "matriarchy" of the all-woman office shifted to accommodate him. (And yes, I do know how this sounds: pushy, and not what you'd call good-girl behavior, even under the circumstances.)
So as voters, we do need to remind ourselves how a culture that loathes everything about us has shaped us, too. And as leaders, we need the chance to mature into politicians who can both feel your pain and inflict it, when necessary. Those women in India had no trouble doing the actual job. They were just voted out of office too soon, before they could learn to exercise power with both empathy and an edge.
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Via Think Progress, we learn that at a speech last night at the University of Colorado, former Attorney General John Ashcroft answered a question about his willingness to undergo waterboarding. He told his audience, “the things that I can survive, if it were necessary to do them to me, I would do.”
That answer is deranged in at least 20 ways, and I’ll think of 20 more as soon as I post this. But can someone please sit down and explain to the bright lights of the Bush administration, patiently, and like they are 7, that there is a difference between being willing to die for one’s country (and apparently Ashcroft is only willing only to all-but die for his) and the ways in which civilized humans treat their enemies? His effort to turn a serious question into a chance for sloppy braggadocio is astounding.
For one thing, Ashcroft didn’t do anything necessary to protect America. He sat out Vietnam (six student deferments and one occupational deferment). Moreover his DoJ colleague who apparently did allow himself to be waterboarded, acting head of the OLC, Daniel Levin, underwent the procedure in 2004. According to an ABC News report, Levin “found the experience terrifying and thought that it clearly simulated drowning,” then concluded that waterboarding was illegal torture “unless performed in a highly limited way.” He lost his job at Justice for that.
The most telling thing about Ashcroft’s non-answer is that it lays bare the central fallacy in Bush administration thinking about how to conduct their torture: The relevant question for these guys is never "what are the rules," but "how tough can I pretend to be while breaking them?"
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