The Leader and the Led

If nature sometimes seems arbitrary, saving some from  a disease that might then take the life of others, slighter injuries to one that might take a life to more severe injuries to another that might not; there has been no such arbitrariness in many of those that have been in charge of human affairs throughout its history.

Humans, in general, do seem to value the life of other humans.  After all, we did evolve as a communitarian species that needed others of our species far more than many species.  Affinity for the commonality of life, and often respect for the life of other species that even allowed us to take some members of other species into our own communities obviously grew out of that need for others.  

And yet…

We have frequently followed leaders who seem to have little regard for the sum of other human lives.   There is the suggestion that this is because so many of us do devalue and disregard the lives of the many, or perhaps, the other.  I am unclear why those who seemed to disregard and disrespect the lives of not only other species, but other humans, even to the extent of those within their community, seemed to have successfully evolved when it seems contrary to the prime need of humanity to have evolved otherwise.  The question of course is: are the followers of these leaders equally depraved of common human bonds or would the bonds tighten could we somehow eliminate these leaders from our midst?

The thing is that there  is evidence that these “abnormal” personalities have existed even into prehistory and even in communities who never succumbed to their arising to charge over the communities. We see this in several ways.  The development of language in communities that did not fall prey to such leaders suggests a conscious linguistic denial of those who might want to overvalue themselves and/or devalue others.  Because this seems to be a conscious linguistic development it appears there must have existed these personalities nearly universally as the communities did try to eliminate terminology from their lexicon that could give rise to the ascendancy of such personalities.  These lexicons don’t just not include nomenclature that might permit exclamations of exceptionalism but also include linguistic patterns that permit the deflation of these personalities that indicate an awareness that such personalities did exist and that they attempted to formulate linguistic patterns to deny the verbiage of extreme personalities from becoming spokespersons to communities.  I theorize, therefore, that linguistic alterations were a necessary essentiality when any of these personalities were able to successfully overcome these barriers and the command of subjugation demanded an alteration in the way people were able to communicate.  People could not inferiorize others without new “words” and linguistic constructions that created categories that placed people into the categories that did not previously exist.  This is why to speak of a tribal leader with the same lexicon that we refer to a categorized leader is misleading because neither the followers of such a tribal leader, nor the leaders understood their roles in the same manner that would be imposed upon them by those who had a different lexicon that saw the very concept of “leadership” in a manner that there was simply no parallel linguistic manner to comprehend.  There was no “command” qualities to leadership; no “authority” or right of leadership beyond the role and the role functioned in conjunction with other roles, not above, or as an exception, or even a particularity that distinguished itself from all other roles necessary for the survival of the community as a whole.

But this also does not relate to any classification of technological or sophistication within the community that might be placed upon it.  If I  might return to the difference between the Polynesians and the Melanesians once again. The Tahitian king was a defined role that had a particular function that was lexiconically distinguished as separate and distinguished to be above others in that community.  In many Melanesian communities, where we often refer to the “big man”, the error in interpreting the big man’s role as somewhat similar, is the role of the big man had no lexiconical equivalent.  People within the Melanesian community often vied to become the “leader’, these big men did lead by forming coalitions with others that allowed them some “superiority” to make decisions for the community and  if we make the observation from our linguistic perspective of what that entails, we define these big men in a way that seems to favor our interpretation of what defines a leader.  

But the problem is that there was no similar distinguishment in their own lexiconical understanding.  Even Malinowski failed to quite grasp that these “leaders” did not similarly correspond in their own languages to our interpretation; that we imposed upon them leadership qualities  by defining their leaders from our lexiconical definition of leadership..  We viewed these big man as having created alliances that granted them authority and that new alliances could alter the situation and bring forth a “replacement”; or a new big man if the people saw their big man failing to meet their needs.  But the communities themselves had no such idea that these big men were leading them.  The communities were quite fluid in their alliances and had fewer defined roles in which any one could actually be said to perform by their own linguistic standards.  What we view as forming alliances in order to obtain power they viewed as forming alliances to minimize any individual or group any  exceptional authority.  What we sometimes viewed as “jealousy” to obtain importance or authority they viewed as ridicule to prevent superiority.  The role of power was to be inconsequential and the less pretentions one made to authority the more opportunity one had to become respected.  The more one became respected the more important it was to be of lesser importance to maintain his coalition.  And the entire culture was built around their language that had no terminology for superiority or leadership but had multitudinous words expressing “giving” “gifting”  and being a responsible member of the community.  But a “gift” was measured by its very insignificance and the more insignificant the gift the more valuable.  Similarly, the responsible member of the community was the one who could become the most insignificant and one earned a “right” to leadership by illustrating his ability to be less important to the community.  To try to stand out by giving something more valuable or to proclaim one’s identity to be of any uniqueness or to have accomplished something more than another earned one laughter; as an indication of the community’s scorn for any importance or exceptionalism they might try to demonstrate.   So if one perchance was seen to be trying to become important one lost one’s importance to the community.  And the vocabulary lacked terminologies that indicated leadership of any over another, but contained a great deal that expressed condemnation for any expression of any being more important than other, or for the concept of the impossibility of leaders being a possibility.

This shunning of the “leader” did not mean there were no leaders, but it is simply impossible to define their understanding of a leader by our definition of a leader because they did not understand the concept of a”leader” as one who leads by attracting or commanding a following.  They had no terminological equivalent for a”leader”.

I might suggest that under these circumstances, nothing could ever go wrong and no “leadership” personalities could even possibly exist.  And yet this is not true, I don’t believe.  Because the shunning still seems to have given occasional rise to the wannabe leader, and there were occasions when the shunning had to become more extreme and these personalities were sometimes sent away, and there were times when they were put to death.

Now as I began this article, I stated I was at a loss to explain why these personalities evolved.  And while evidence of their existence prehistorically is at best tenuous, some have theorized there are indications they did exist and that prehistoric communities similarly attempted to eliminate them.  Was there, therefore, an evolutionary reason for these personalities?  I cannot say, but another misunderstanding of evolution is that all genetic traits that survive are beneficial traits to the species.  This is not necessarily true we are currently being informed.  But whether there was ever an evolutionary reason for such personalities to evolve, the neolithic age gave permanent rise to their survival.  

There are many reasons for this.The ending of the ice age that gave rise to the neolithic settling of communities and an environment that allowed for the survival of humanity in much greater populations created more contention for available resources.  I have written extensively about ways that communities developed without overtaxing their environments—developing kin communities; migration, etc.  And of course conflict between the communities begins as they challenge each other for resources.

Settling into semi-permanent communities allowed for more rapid technological tools and these stronger tools could also become weapons to deny encroachments upon a communities’ environment.  It also created a condition where many food resources could come under more direct harvesting conditions of a community that in turn, aided the ability of the community to survive, and the territorialism of many species, also present in humanity, would have led to more specifically claimed “territories.”  A community more or less began to see their environment as their “property” to defend because it provided the sustenance that had become a more geographically localized phenomenon of communities to believe their survival was more dependent on a particular locale where they had invested much of their dependence upon such locales.  And the other big thing was the greater use of grains.  There is modern evidence that humanity had developed some knowledge of how to utilized grains as a food source prior to the neolithic age, and while their use as a food supplement would not, at first, become the central foodstuffs of the human diet, it did give rise to the potentiality that large tracts of grains could become one of the key elements that would lead to the rise of these unsuitable human personalities that communities had always attempted to minimize or cast out.

But the rise of these new technologies also began to give rise to something else and this would become an essential component in the transformation of human culture.  Modern archaeological evidence is beginning to illustrate that there were probably communal gatherings that extended backwards prior to the neolithic age.  And I have begun to try to comprehend these gatherings that were  more than likely were essential elements in seasonal migratory patterns; but the common reason given that they were for some “religious” purpose is probably stretching the concept of religion as it was to come to be.  I am sure they would have been important events in the mating cycle where females could select mates from different communities, but also events where cultural and technological exchange could occur, and I would propose one of the reasons that technological advancement often appeared somewhat similarly in prehistory might not be that everyone simultaneously discovered similar technologies independent of each other but because they were in some way exchanged and these gatherings would have been a great opportunity for such technologies to be exchanged, but also for communities to share goods and foodstuffs from their own communities.  So both goods, tools, and foods could be commonly shared at these gatherings, as well as becoming one of the prime occasions where the genetic lines between humans were intermingled.  But I doubt there was some “mother god” or any particular gods that all would have gathered to commemorate at that point in prehistory.  Whatever forms worship might have entailed, the concept of gods would not have been developed in any way that me might conceive of them to be.   But herein begins intercultural exchange that would begin to proliferate within a few centuries as kingdoms did develop, and controlling the resources became important to many of the territorial communities as they began to be collectivized by kingdoms with patterned mechanisms of authority.

Herein lies the problem we still face today.  In order to be in charge of the communities that these personalities began to control they imposed their disconnection with the importance the community had always placed upon the lives of the individuals within the community who were all deemed necessary to the survival of the community. Individual lives had little relevance unless they served the purpose of the leader.  

What transpires from this disregard for individual lives enters into the lexicon of the community by these undesirable personalities, is that others have lesser value to the community.  This can take a variety of formulations but all come down to an ultimate disregard of the lives of the members of the community.  One of these is to present the other as an object of fear to the one.  Fearing the other, the other’s life becomes threatening to the one who is fearful.  The Hamas attack on Israel was used to install fear to desensitize the Israeli’s response that many claim has been even less deferential to the lives of the Palestinians.  As Peter Beinart has said, this creates another fear in Palestinians which increases  their own disregard for the lives of Israelis they feel to be threatening their  lives, increasing their ability to become the next generation of Hamas to instill fear in the Israelis of the Palestians and perpetuate the cycle of disregard for the lives of each of the other.

But to return to the United States, I think it is important to distinguish between the undesirable leader who uses rhetoric of discord to install both fear and hatred and the individuals who fall prey to such fear and hatred.  Individually many a white supremacists has acted to pull off the road and attempt to aid a black motorist in a car crash.  Individually many a black American who has been abused by white Americans will jump into a a river to save a drowning white child.  

This indicates to me that the problem of collective patterns of hate are not our necessary genetic inheritance but a distortion led by the undesirable leader to implant his disregard of the value of individual  life that is illustrated by a two-pronged disregard.  First he instills fear and disrespect for others but in order to do this he has to also show disregard for the lives of his own followers so they feel they have become marginalized in their own lives to end up following the very people who have marginalized them.  That may not seem self-evident, but if one looks closely at the situation it can be illustrated to be so.  If I don’t feel marginalized I do not become susceptible to marginalizing others.  Donald Trump is well known to throw his supporters to the wolves and to embrace those he marginalizes when he wants them to follow him.  For instance, his interview on Univision after threatening to build massive concentration camps to install “rapist immigrants.”  He first marginalizes the immigrant then embraces the exception that it doesn’t include the particular individual whom he has marginalized to induce fear within the bosom.  Of course none of this is unique to Donald Trump.  But there are few examples of the complete caricature of the undesirable personality that Donald Trump personifies.

Now it is my contention that the threatening individual has no right to the speech that threatens.  The threat instills anguish and conflict that leads not to free listening but conformed listening shaped by attempting to formulate as much animosity from fear by said speech that will prevent the listener’s free response.  Free speech must equal the opportunity to hear the speech absent the fear that failing to conform to the ideology of the speech condemns the listener to reproach himself if he doesn’t respond in the expected manner and become afraid for his own existence and survival if he doesn’t respond with hatred and animosity which leads not to free listening  but to Pavolvian instinctual listening, as I heard someone suggest recently.  Of course free speech cannot include threats to another nor can it be presented as a method that denies the opportunity the same speech.  Could I threaten or ask someone to kill Donald Trump?  Of course not.  I would be denied that speech.  Could I encourage all black people in America to unite together and kill all white people without at least calling forth censorship and dissent from all stripes of the spectrum of American life and probably a great deal of investigation and possible attempts to stifle my expression of that sentiment.  This is not even subjecture.  There was a documentary in the 60’s hosted by Mike Wallace that I recently viewed on youtube.  In this documentary Mike Wallace suggests it is alright for black citizens to peacefully follow Martin Luther King (although it often led to violence against those peaceful protestors that remained unmentioned by Wallace) but it was not acceptable for Malcolm X or for the Black Panthers to suggest  that they had the right to defend themselves against white violence perpetrated upon them.  

But of course, Donald Trump would have no appeal to anyone who had not already become marginalized.  The company owner who does not value his workforce who denies their right to workplace safety or comparable standards of living to himself is just as undesirable.  He has no right to be a boss.  The congressperson or state legislature who attempts to represent himself has not only no right to be elected, I should think he has no right to even stand for election.  

No right is ever entitled to the one who believes it is his right to deny to another the same right.  That is not the right to believe as one will, but the right to deny the other the same right.  Denying the worker the right of equality to the boss creates the worker who feels he has been denied his right and thus he is easily led to attempt to demand his own right by denying yet another.  

And perhaps it is time in human history to once again cast out the undesirable person who denies the value of others, who demeans the value of each life and makes the death of another less valuable or important.  Perhaps it is time to marginalize those who would marginalize others and eliminate them from our social discourse.  

Perhaps.