I love the gato and I love the rhetoric, even (or maybe especially) when it gets a bit overheated. Here I think if anything the problem is understated. It's not just that every elected official at a level higher than county counselor is a narcissist. That's true, or at least true often enough that it's the most prevalent characteristic. …
I love the gato and I love the rhetoric, even (or maybe especially) when it gets a bit overheated. Here I think if anything the problem is understated. It's not just that every elected official at a level higher than county counselor is a narcissist. That's true, or at least true often enough that it's the most prevalent characteristic. The problem isn't just them, though, it's us. If you put the most self-effacing person in charge, there would still be an action (over inaction) bias. The right thing to do right now, at this moment in the U.S., would be to stop doing anything -- just to say, "Everyone go back to what you were doing in February 2020" -- but to the public, or most of it anyway, that person would look lazy. So the official would feel compelled to run around and promise this and that program or initiative, not necessarily due to any self-aggrandizing tendency, but perhaps even out of an impulse to serve.
I love the gato and I love the rhetoric, even (or maybe especially) when it gets a bit overheated. Here I think if anything the problem is understated. It's not just that every elected official at a level higher than county counselor is a narcissist. That's true, or at least true often enough that it's the most prevalent characteristic. The problem isn't just them, though, it's us. If you put the most self-effacing person in charge, there would still be an action (over inaction) bias. The right thing to do right now, at this moment in the U.S., would be to stop doing anything -- just to say, "Everyone go back to what you were doing in February 2020" -- but to the public, or most of it anyway, that person would look lazy. So the official would feel compelled to run around and promise this and that program or initiative, not necessarily due to any self-aggrandizing tendency, but perhaps even out of an impulse to serve.