Author: Alexandra Smith

This talk was part of the Jepson Lecture Series which focused a lot on technology and the digital age. I went into this talk by Yasha Levine expecting to hear about Russian interference in our elections, online terrorist “recruiting,” the dark web, and more things along these lines based on the title and that fact that Levine’s job description is “Russian-American investigative journalist.” However, this is not the talk that I got. He started with a brief (aka not-so-brief) explanation of the origins and history of the internet. He explained that it was at least designed by the military to act as a tool. This does not surprise me, especially after taking this course, because our government pours a lot of money into military endeavors, and we’ve talked a lot about how economic motivations are ALWAYS at play. He then went on to explain how the internet became available to the general populous and slightly into the rise of social media.

I was a little disappointed at this point in the speech because he chose to bring it to an end. It felt like there was no wisdom or final message. It ended in a very “that’s just kinda the way it is” way. I was very unsatisfied by this and I think a lot of fellow audience members felt the same because many people asked questions that recognized that this may be the way it is currently but also asked what we could do to change the internet so that it is no longer weaponized. I was once again dissatisfied by his responses because they felt like he himself had given up any semblance of hope regarding the internet. I may not be an expert on the topic, but I am also not someone who settles for things that I am unhappy with. I wish that Levine had taken this opportunity to teach his audience more than history.

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Michele Norris is a former journalist on NPR and now is the head of the Race Project. The Race Project asks people to describe their experience and relationship with race in six words or less. She started by leaving postcards everywhere she went, with the address already written on the cards so that they could just stick them in the mail and the cards would be sent right to her office. Norris has been collecting these cards over the course of the years. During her presentation, she shared a number of cards with us. A lot were as I expected, minorities talking about their experiences. I was surprised to see that there were a lot of cards about gender or sexuality because neither are what the project was initially designed for. Michele Norris said that this surprised her too, but what she discovered is that when people are given an avenue to expose their true feelings, they are going to take it.

I think my favorite moment about her talk was who she handled differing opinions. She showed a race card from a white man from Wisconsin. It said something along the lines of “I’m white and I pay for it.” When she put this card on the scene, the mood of the room definitely shifted, and you could hear grumbles and objections spike up in the room. She immediately addressed these by saying that the race project is designed to facilitate conversation and does not aim to judge. Everyone has a story to share, and every single person’s story should be valued equally to each other’s. I think that this point is really important because that it something that we as Americans fail to do a lot. Our highly polarized, partisan world means that people judge without listening. I think that the Williamson article echoed this idea of listening and trying to understand one another, which is part of why I liked both that article and this talk so much.

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When reading the sub-header of this article (“What students need to learn if American Democracy Is to Survive and Thrive”), I became very excited because I feel that this class reads a lot of negative and pessimistic things about American Democracy, both past and present. Based on this sub-header, I went into this article expecting more concrete and tangible advice; while some points hit this on the nose, I think others missed their mark. With the three civic virtues, I really liked how under awareness and moral humility/courage he recognized the fallibility of humanity, saying its ok to not get it right every time but as long as we are aware of the ideal and keep working towards it, mistakes and missteps along the way can be forgiven. I had some questions during the fairness section. Williamson called for having faith in the system to be fair and just, but often our system is neither of those things. In terms of elections, sometimes the popular vote winner does not match the electoral vote winner. Do we have an obligation to continue believing the system is fair? In 2000, there was a recount dispute that ended with Bush winning Florida by 537 votes, well within the margin of miscount error. Again, should we trust that elections are fair?

He goes on to address this in the moral humility/courage section, but I don’t think he answered the above questions well enough. In both those cases above, I believe that an injustice was committed, but many others do not. How can we differentiate bias from how we see things as just or unjust? How can we differentiate a person raising a grievance from a sore loser, and how do we determine which person is which?

The second half of his paper I enjoyed much more than the first. He touched on a lot of things we’ve previously discussed in class including Lincoln: the man vs. the myth. I really enjoyed the writings of Frederick Douglas because they echoed Williamson’s sentiments of before: we are all imperfect and being imperfect does not make you inherently bad. If someone can start their journey in a country where they are considered property and then continue on in their life to write about America and its democracy in a positive light, then it gives me hope that our democracy can survive this period of extreme polarization. It’s nice to see a more hopeful note for the future for a change.

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In early November, I attended a title known generally as the Last Lecture. Last Lectures are based on the concept that if a professor discovered that they were dying but they had one last opportunity to talk to their students, what would they say? The best of these talks relate to the common human experience, while drawing on their own experiences to spread their wisdom. I have seen a lot of these lectures myself, and when the professor does not actually have the pressure of their own looming death, they tend to default to their own area of study, neglecting the emotional component that makes these speeches so powerful. At Dr. Laura Knouse’s Last Lecture titled “Being Human is Hard,” it appeared at first that she had fallen into this trap. A psychologist by background, she used lots of data and studies to emphasize that being a human, specifically a human in the 21^st century, is different from that of non-humans because modern day technology allows us access to more information and connections than ever before; in theory, we should be able to use this unlimited access to make ourselves happy.

It was at this point that Dr. Knouse went onto her more emotional, philosophical, and profound points of her talk. She did not explain how to avoid suffering or how to find happiness specifically, but instead emphasized that we must recognize being human is hard. To do that, we must not be too hard on others and more importantly, not be too hard on ourselves. Instead of putting ourselves down, we should instead realize that because life is hard, we will make mistakes; accept that the flub was just that, a mistake, and start to move forward. She used the example in her personal life of her son. When she was pregnant, she thought that she could handle a variety of potential disabilities both physical and mental, but the one she thought she would not be able to handle was autism. Of course, nine months later, her son was born with autism. Using the philosophy of the title of her speech, she decided not be so hard on herself for hoping against what ended up making her son unique. She forgave herself for having short patience or needing to take “time off.” She also vowed never to foster resentment or blame towards her son for the way that he is. This mindset allowed her to focus nothing but love and attention to her child.

Dr. Knouse advocated for this mindset because it allows a person to become more productive and successful when they are not dwelling on past mistakes, most of which will have little-to-no effect on the future. After doing the reading “Beyond Red and Blue,” I saw a common give-each-other-some-lack-attitude when Williamson talked about working to understand one another; he also raised the point that we must forgive ourselves and each other when we make a mistake because it is all part of a learning curve towards a more accepting and inclusive society.

 

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Ingroups are defined as groups with which people identify with strongly. I liked how this article referenced the concept of intersectionality on page 143 because it emphasizes that a large number of factors determine the ingroup, that aspects of a person’s identity contribute to one another versus overpowering one another. I also thought that that the link between language and ingroup vs. outgroup was very interesting because we talk more about race, religion, gender, sexuality and don’t tend to consider language a large factor. However, looking at examples from our class, it makes more sense. MLK was praised for his ability to “code switch,” and communicate in a way that reached both white and black people. While not every single white person listened to his message, his ability to permeate the ingroup even slightly is unique and made his more well known.

In my own personal experiences, I did not realize that I use language to hang onto my Midwestern identity. At home, I did not think about how I spoke because everyone spoke in the same way. In fact, I didn’t think about it at all until I came home fall break of freshman year and my mom told me sadly that my accent was faded. This is an example of what Giles says on page 145: “the importance of language as a component of a person’s social identity can change over the lifespan.” Now at a school where the Midwestern population is low and the majority of my friends have never actually been there, I find that I value my Midwestern accent more and even lean into it at times. I use my language as a tie to home and my home ingroup.

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The two video clips provided a good summary of the women’s movement but also addressed how they split from the civil rights movement. I liked how it laid a groundwork in which to understand the other two articles because I was a little confused about the intersection of civil rights movements and women’s movements. Another thing I took from the video was that the women’s movement was not quite as noble, grand, and revolutionary as I was originally taught (which seems to be a common theme of this class). Maybe this is my incorrect interpretation but it seemed liked the women’s movement was successful because A) it was really just white women and B) it exploited race to say that if black men could vote, why couldn’t white women because socially they should be above black people, emphasizing already ingrained racism.

In the first article by Virginia Schein, I was bothered by her justification that women lead differently because they have a stronger “natural ability to nurture,” because I think it embodies a large flaw in our society surrounding gender. I do not think it is a bad thing to be nurturing, (and speaking from an evolutionary perspective, women did tend to need to be more nurturing to help their children survive), but I do object to the generalization of an entire gender. Every women and man and non-binary human being is their own set of characteristics and qualities. When we say women or men are XYZ, it traps people within that box, which I think it unfair.

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One of the very first things written down in my leadership notes is “a leader cannot lead without followers,” so it’s about time that we read a piece that focused on this very important component of leadership. Robert Kelley’s “In Praise of Followers” turns the camera away from the leaders and focuses on the importance, the types, and qualities of followers. It is very different to think about what makes a good follower because our society makes us push to be in the position of power instead of settling for a subordinate. I did think that the last section on cultivating effective followers was entirely designed for leaders and companies because they want to craft good employees to make their company run more smoothly.

One thing that stood out and kinda bothered me was the choice of examples that Kelley used. In the example for “commitment” and the two examples for “competence and focus,” he used examples of women. Seeing this, I was both excited and a little upset because I love the exemplifying of women doing something right (esp. because one was a woman in STEM yay!), but I also disliked that one of the first articles we have read that does this is exemplifying them as followers. Even though Kelley argues that followership is not a subordinate role, it is still viewed as one in our culture; whether we think it should be or not is a separate question. When he got to the example of “courage,” I became especially unhappy because Kelley used an example of a man but treated him differently than the aforementioned women. He gave this example a name (Jerome LiCari) when the women’s stories were referred to in general terms. Though I enjoyed the content of the article, I found this snub very hard to get over.

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Prior to listening to this episode of the “Bad Ideas” podcast, I had heard of Jim Jones, Jonestown, and, of course, the “drink the Kool Aid” expression. What I did not know were the origins of the cult. I was surprised to hear that Jones was a proponent of racial equality because when I think of extremists who separate themselves from society, I tend to think of people fighting progress in society and rebelling as a result, not those who are advocating for progress. I then asked myself “How can something founded on such positive ideas turn negative?”. This reminded me of our discussion of groupthink.

When talking about groupthink, we talked about how a group with unified values and beliefs that has high cohesion can push each other to become more radically extreme, exactly what happened with Jonestown. The people of Jonestown, under Jim Jones’s influence, pressured each other to push even farther in their beliefs, so much so that they lost a sense of morality and reality. The article on groupthink also said that groups suffering from groupthink are more likely to kill people outside of their group without remorse, exactly what happened in Jonestown.

The creation of groupthink in Jonestown makes sense because Jim Jones studied and admired Hitler. Hitler’s tactics inspired either group cohesion (leading to groupthink) or fear among his citizens. Jones used very similar tactics and saw very similar results. I do find it odd that Jim Jones was an advocate of racial equality yet admired Hitler because Hitler’s beliefs stand in direct opposition to this. This makes me think that Jim Jones prioritized power and influence over his own morals, but that is just speculation.

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Janis basically defines groupthink as when the dominant opinion in a group of people becomes so strong that is overrides consideration of alternative tactics. He also made the point that a more cohesive group is more likely to experience groupthink. It makes sense that a group that’s better at working together would start to think together, but these two things have very different connotations. We are taught that groupthink is a dangerous concept, which I agree that it is, but on the flip-side, cohesion in a group is something that we are taught to strive for. Cohesion helps a group be more efficient, another quality that we think of as positive in a group.

The movie Thirteen Days shows the aftermath of groupthink. The failed Bay of Pigs invasion was a consequence of groupthink. JFK believed his military advisors because he was a new president who placed too much trust in their expertise. His newly elected status caused him to not feel strong enough to question or defy the dominant opinion. Because no one raised questions, the mission failed miserably. The Cuban Missile Crisis shows the aftermath of this decision. JFK takes calculated moves, even with his military advisors, because he now understands that every individual person has their own agenda which influences their opinions. The military generals wanted to redeem themselves after the Bay of Pigs failure, so they supported an all-out invasion (according to the movie). The movie paints JFK as the unmoving obstacle between the Pentagon, Cuba, and World War III, an adversary to groupthink. While I am not sure whether this is historically true, it shows the value of fighting groupthink, because if he had blindly followed the majority opinion, we would have fought another World War, most likely a nuclear one which would have changed the world as we know it.

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After last class’s reading, I was a little confused about transactional leadership, so the reading titled “What is Transactional Leadership?” helped clear up a lot. I thought that the emphasis on order, structure, and consistency for crisis situations made complete sense, but I had a couple of points that I’m not so onboard with. In the first paragraph, it says that transactional leadership does not fit with creativity and innovation, but the examples of Vince Lombardi, Bill Gates, and Howard Schultz given at the end all contradict this. Vince Lombardi used a new strategy of drilling the plays into his team so that they didn’t make mistakes, even if their opponents knew what was coming, instead of trying to surprise his opponents; he innovated a whole new strategy of coaching. Bill Gates revolutionized the way that we use technology. Howard Schultz turned Starbucks into the empire it is by turning around their entire business model. I don’t think that transactional leadership and creativity are incompatible; instead, I think that they need one another to succeed. Even if a leader does not exhibit both traits simultaneously at every moment of every day, I still think both are necessary for the leader to have.

Another point that struck me was when the reading claimed that transactional leaders appeal to “the self-interest of individuals” because the phrase self-interest last came up when we were defining tyranny. In that context, it meant “against the greater good,” but I don’t think that is true here. If you look at the quotes by transactional leaders at the end of the reading, I think that all these leaders are doing what is best for their own business or organization, so how is this defined as acting in “self-interest”? My belief is that it is not, and the reading mis-defined transactional leadership. I view transactional leadership requires a more pragmatic view of the world, a here-and-now mentality, while transformational leadership involves high aspirations.

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Robert Greenleaf’s “The Servant as Leader” focuses on whether someone who occupies a traditional servant role then ascends to a leadership position is the best leader. Our latest discussion focused on humility in the context of American politics, so when reading this article, I thought of the premise of servant leadership in that same context. The US President, or any elected official, is technically a servant of their country. However, they are also a servant of their constituents, the people who got them elected; because a large part of being an elected official is being re-elected, I think that politicians feel more loyalty to their constituents specifically over the nation as a whole. Regardless, they are technically still filling a servant role. But are they servant leaders? According to Greanleaf’s definition, no. He claims that a “great leader is seen as servant first,” but when reflecting on both past and present presidents, the first term I think of is not “servant.” However, I still think of presidents as fulfilling the position of great leader, which is why I disagree with Greenleaf’s point.

Before the quote mentioned above, he used Hermann Hesse’s Journey to the East as an example. In the story, the main character poses as a servant but is later revealed to be the head of the organization sponsoring the journey. He may have been seen by the characters on the journey with him as a servant prior to being seen as a leader, but he was the leader at heart the entire time. Greenleaf later says that this is who Leo actually was from the beginning, but how can you know if he was a leader or servant first? It feels the chicken-before-the-egg debate. Does the order in which your seen actually matter because wouldn’t you fundamentally be the same? Please discuss.

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In Machiavelli’s The Prince, one line in particular stuck out to me: “One, however, who becomes prince by favour of the populace, must maintain its friendship, which he will find easy,  the people ask nothing but not to be oppressed” (113). I found this interesting because it goes directly contrary to how we thought of monarchies before this point. In England, if a person came into power legally (bloodline, designation, conquest), he would be a legal ruler regardless of the people’s preferences. The idea of needing the approval of the people reminds me of American democracy. To rise into the any political office requires the “favour of the populace,” but a person can only stay in that position if they can continue to maintain approval.

Another portion of the reading that caught my attention was on page 123 where Machiavelli talked about appearances versus actuality. He says that princes only need to appear as if they have the true qualities of a prince, and it does not matter whether they actually possess them or not. This reminded me of our discussion on charisma and whether it can be learned behavior versus inherent. Basically, our conclusion was that we ourselves cannot know unless we know the leader personally. Machiavelli says exactly this, that princes need to present himself with mercy, faith, humanity, sincerity, and religion, and only these 5 things, and his own qualities or personality traits do not matter.

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Listening to this podcast brought up a couple of different points, but one in particular caught my attention. It discussed how we look at history through the lens of diversity. People are often taught that women do not regularly appear in history because they were not present in prominent roles; the podcast used the example of women in science to refute this claim. People attribute the lack of female Nobel prize winners to the lack of women in science. I know that this is what I was taught, and I accepted it because based on my knowledge of older time periods, I knew that women had less opportunities. After that one sentence remark, the class would move on and continue to talk about the prominent white males that made landmark discoveries. I thought it was interesting how the podcast highlighted that the lack of women in prominent roles is, yes, partially symptomatic of the lack of women in science, but we must go one step deeper. Why are women not in scientific fields? Also, it is doubtful that there were quite literally no women in science, so for those who were, who were they? What did they do and how did they contribute? These are the crucial questions we fail to ask.

After listening to this portion, I had an “a-ha I’m enlightened” feeling, which was basically crushed a few minutes later. They began to move away from women in general and speak about minorities and minority women. Why were they not recognized in scientific fields? I thought to myself, again, that these groups of people just weren’t in scientific fields. Immediately, my “a-ha I’m enlightened” feeling dissolved. Just because one becomes aware of their bias/ignorance does not mean that they are instantly cured of it. This ties into the way we study history. We answer the first question (“why are women not in scientific fields?”), accept that answer, and simply move on with our day. To fully understand history, you have to keep digging for the next question, which leads to the next question, which leads to the next, etc. Fixing this flaw is not a one-and-done, but the beginning step is being able to recognize it.

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As I was watching the movie, I was kept wondering whether Richard III qualifies as a tyrant by the definition we’ve been using. The first part of our definition involves his rise to power. Technically he was legally appointed to the position of Lord Protector, but there was only a need for that role after Richard killed his brother and his son was too young to rule independently. Richard then place his nephews in a prison-like tower to allow for his own rise to kingship. While others may support the action of locking away the nephews, Richard disrupts the proper line of succession an increase in his own power.

Last class we discussed that England defines a tyrant by a leader who infringes on the rights of the English People. We know very little about Richard’s interactions with the common people because we see none of those reactions. This is because he is so consumed with his own affairs and increasing his own personal power that we never see him think about his subjects. Richard III is obsessed with personal interest and personal gain throughout the entire movie, seen throughout his numerous murderous actions. Particularly, murdering Buckingham shows his dedication to accumulating personal power. Buckingham was a loyal follower, supporter, and ally for the first half of the movie, but the moment he showed doubts about Richard and his intentions, he is offed. The only time we see anything besides power-hunger from Richard is when he is haunted by the memories of his victims, yet that does not stop him from venturing into battle.

We can discuss whether we believe Richard is a tyrant by perfect definition, but I think we can all agree that he is a negative leader. He never performs the murders himself, but there is no doubt that he ordered them to be conducted. What disturbed me the most was when he had a man hanged and appeared to be admiring the images of his dead body afterwards. It made him appear remarkably unhinged (which he is to be fair).

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The first reading by Christian Camerota reinforced to me that King was indeed a charismatic man. King was chosen to lead protests despite his lack of experience, showing that something drew people to him; people viewed him as the type of man that they wanted to follow, the mark of a “true charismatic.” His emphasis on the imperfection of our leaders made me think about other high-profile leaders with their own imperfections. JFK was a known philanderer, yet that is rarely the first thing that people think of when reflecting on his presidency. Similarly, George Washington was a slave owner as were many other Founding Fathers, but their reputations remain untarnished. On the other hand, there have been many influential leaders whose legacies have been outshined by their mistakes. Alexander Hamilton set up our financial system that allowed us to be a unified group of states, but his very public affair dragged his name and reputation through the mud. Does this have something to do with “how much good” the leader does during their life? Does this have something to do with their reputation at the time of their death? I’m genuinely curious so please discuss.

When I started Clayborne Carson’s piece, I felt that he was being too hard on King. I was definitely raised in the kind of environment that Carson criticized, an environment that galvanized King’s leadership skills while ignoring other factors and components of the Civil Rights Movement, but even when taking those things into consideration, King was still a charismatic and influential leader. On page 29, Carson says King was “overcome with fear rather than confident and secure in his leadership role,” but do we know that those outside his inner circle saw this fear? Part of charismatic leadership is developing the persona; just because MLK may have felt afraid does not mean that his followers saw or felt that same fear. Carson also cites the example that black students initiated counter sit-ins without waiting for King to tell them to do so. Charismatic leaders have messages or agendas that they wish their followers to adopt. While I am certainly no expert on Dr. King, I think that the largest part of his message was standing up peacefully against racial injustice, exactly what these students did. Even without explicit encouragement from King, these students embraced his philosophy and lived-out King’s message.

Shortly after this point, I wondered by Carson even wrote this piece. It seemed very negative and belittling of King’s accomplishments, even though he threw a few paragraphs of praise in there. Shortly after wondering this, I reached page 32 where Carson emphasizes that others can recognize qualities similar to King within themselves. He wrote this piece to humanize the public perception of Dr. King so that others can see the most meaningful portions of his life had nothing to do with charisma. This ties in very well to the first reading because they aim to accomplish the same goal: allowing lay people to see the potential within themselves.

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Leader – RBG

Role Model – Michelle Obama

Hero(es) – First Responders

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