Just a brief email this time – yet there is no lack of articles concerning leadership in the globe right now.
A few of weeks ago I wrote on the theory and the literature of Ayn Rand, scourge of liberal-minded intellectuals. Trump is one of her fans. And it shows. An extreme proponent of individuality, Rand denigrated communal spirit and activity. What would she think of G7 endeavours? Not much I anticipate. A tiny sampling of today’s leadership concerns—such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, and the refusal of a port to dock for immigrants from North Africa—must be acknowledged for the sake of our planet.
But Trump comes late, humiliates his fellow leaders, departs early, and rips up the communiqué he signed. Then he’s on to Singapore, where he will appraise Kim Jong-un in less than a minute, he says, expecting to announce the end of the 68 years-old Korean War, and much more, having his eye on the Nobel Peace Prize, as he himself acknowledges. There is no appreciation by Trump of collective merit and collective work. It’s him, him, like an under-developed kid.
Johnson speaks on the I/we dynamic in his music — the composer’s balancing and interplay between originating from the I position and coming from the We position. Both matter. When is Shostakovich and his music speaking about his personal sorrow, and when expressing the agony of all those living under Joseph Stalin’s reign of terror? And when is he aiming to talk to each one of us personally, and when to us en-masse?
Musically, you can hear this in the song. An oboe performs a plaintive solo melody, to which all the orchestra’s violins react, and so on. Johnson has written a fantastic short book on the ”I and the ‘We’ in Shostakovich’s music and in his own life and suffering from acute depression. Randian thinking is focused on promoting self-interest. I wonder what on earth would Ayn Rand have thought of Shostakovich’s music testifying to the communal suffering? Not much, I suppose. And what would Trump think of that?
Some followers of Margaret Thatcher profess a conviction in Rand’s anti-collective theory. But Thatcher had a peculiar situation. She successfully negotiated and backed the Maastricht Treaty, but Trump-like she rapidly regretted it and screamed against it and all its followers. But, also Trump-like, she respected and revered strong dictatorial dictators like herself. At Maastricht, in the Netherlands, she said ‘I shall fight hard for Britain, and I believe all the other European nations’ leaders will fight just as hard for their own countries’. She didn’t want weak opponents and easy victory.
I recall several Dutch colleagues at the time (early 1990s) remarking ‘What is all this about “battles”. Here in the Netherlands we believe in finding the common ground. And why in UK hotels are public rooms named after military heroes and victories?’ Why indeed? There is a feminine vs masculine leadership type element here. Anthropologically, the Anglo-Saxon world supports masculine-related values such as winning conflicts, the Netherlands feminine-related ones such as support and caring.
Trump admires strong dictatorial dictators, like himself. But if they win the debate he derides them as weak. He is one mixed-up child. But leaders have followers, and Trump has many in a collective mirror image of himself. They will probably vote him in for a second round in 2020. Picking victors and losers in the leadership stakes is a mug’s game. Fred Goodwin (Fred the Shred) found it out when the Sir cap no longer fitted. Will Donald Trump fly too near to the sun and come crashing down? I doubt he would notice, much alone gain from the experience. Sensitivity is a foreign nation.