Misleadership?

Abuse of Faith in Governance: Mystery of the Unasked Question (Part #9)

[Parts: First | Prev | Next | Last | All] [Links: To-K | From-K | From-Kx | Refs ]

Is the role of the Emperor then to be understood as what is loosely termed the leadership of the "international community" (described above)? Does this imply the effective existence of a "misleadership council" of some form, as discussed separately in Emergence of a Global Misleadership Council: misleading as vital to governance of the future? (2007) under the following headings:

Essential ambiguity of leadership and misleadership
Strategic leadership as essentially a "shell game" with potential opponents, followers and dissidents?
Avoidance of reference to misleadership
Unrecognized phenomena?
Criteria of misleadership
Exemplars of misleadership
Framing the interplay of leadership and misleadership
Framing the interplay of (mis)leadership and (mis)followership
Humanity's need for great misleadership?
Appropriate celebration of "misleadership" -- and "misfollowership"?
Emergence of a Global Misleadership Council?

As noted above, the pattern of "damage limitation" by governance in response to any harder evidence of abuse is to narrow concern onto isolated incidents ("scapegoats") or geographical zones ("Ireland") and to prevent, or avoid, any implication that the abuse may be systemic. The "system" may however be blamed where it may be held to be beyond individual or collective responsibility. This pattern has more dangerous implications. If a problem is identified as worthy of focus by governance, an unasked question is whether it has been so selected as a form of "scapegoat" to avoid consideration of systemic issues. A simpler problem may then be a surrogate for more complex problems.

A challenge such as "climate change" is a very convenient surrogate. Much of the "blame" may be held to be systemic and an array of token remedial measures may be promoted. Such a framing neatly avoids consideration of the challenge of ever increasing population size -- driving climate change and a whole array of "shortages" that are likely to reach catastrophic proportions long before those of climate change.

An appropriate metaphor to illustrate the challenges of governance is that of bullfighting -- with any system of governance as a group of toreadors in the bullring faced with the massive force of the bull (namely some concerned public constituency). The art of bullfighting by a matador is then appropriately to attract the attention of the bull -- by waving a traditional cape (the "red flag") and irritating it -- to orient it appropriately and exploit the energy of its potentially fatal movements in order to exemplify that skill. The matador, as the principal toreador, is assisted by picadors and banderilleros -- well-represented in any system of governance. Within this metaphor, the "red flag" is of course any "problem" brandished by the matador as the challenge for the bull, to get it moving -(to "mobilize" it) -- stimulated by the picadors and banderilleros. The "contest" contiunues until the bull is exhausted and is gracefully killed off to general appreciation of the "resolutioin" of the conflict. Another bull may then be brought in order to continue the pattern. Current controversy over the ethics of bullfighting might be usefully considered as a way of exploring the fate of issues of public concern.

The metaphor might also be instructively reversed in that the challenge for any concerned public constituency -- as a relatively disempowered minority -- is to act as a "matador" faced with the "bull" of all-powerful governance. "Bullfighting" is then the art of asymmetric engagement with governance or its agencies -- until the "bull" is exhausted and can be gracefully terminated without prejudice. A notable example of such a bullfighter at the time of writing has been Joanna Lumley in her vigorous successful encounter with UK government agencies over the issue of gurkha veterans (Gurkha Justice Campaign). Another excellent example is the continuing capacity of television host Jon Stewart to reframe the "bull" of governance.

[Parts: First | Prev | Next | Last | All] [Links: To-K | From-K | From-Kx | Refs ]