Date of publication: January 28, 1999
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Comments on this column:
I've always thought shamelessness, like humorlessness, was the mark of a
true leader. Self promotion requires shamelessness, and convincing people
of your earnestness prohibits displaying any fundamental ironic notions
that life is a joke, really, designed for the amusement of God. Americans
have tended to confuse that which is moral with that which is merely
moralistic, but I'm hopeful that the polls may indicate this has changed,
and that the right wing may be the last bastion of moralism. But maybe the
public is gaining the courage of its own imperfections.
I heard Tom DeLay, the Texas congressman with the clenched hair, say that
the impeachment boiled down to a contest between the absolutists and the
relativists. I wanted to tell him that though I am on the relativist side
of the battle I believe as absolutely as anyone believes anything that he
is a dangerous asshole.
A.W.
"Wow, I think some liberal heart blood got spilled on my screen." Noah L.
While we're on the topic, I'd like to ask a related question. Pretty much
everyone except Larry Flynt and Woody Allen admits that the President's
behavior is repellant, and that the biggest obstacle to Bill Clinton's
policy initiatives is Bill Clinton. As President, Al Gore would stand a
good chance of making real progress on what would be an essentially
identical agenda.
QUESTION: Why do so many otherwise intelligent people have such a
disturbingly cult-like devotion to Bill Clinton the man, such that they
are willing to employ the most ludicrous circumlocutions to defend his
behavior?
B. B.
A.W.
Your analogy fails. In bankruptcy proceedings --- as well as in most
variations on the 12 Step program --- the price of forgiveness and a
second chance is that you admit you have a problem, stop the behavior
associated with the problem, and make direct amends to the persons harmed
by your behavior. Contrast this with the President's actual actions over
the last few years, and I think you may begin to see the point.
Aaa, fuck 'em. I think this thing has been a great filter in some
ways, separating out those who can't hold in the mind at the same time two
conflicting facts, as Orwell sort of put it once, in this case that
Clinton deserves a spanking, and that his persecutors -- excuse me,
prosecutors -- deserve to be run out of town on a rail. It's what they are
doing to the country that's dangerous, not Clinton's squirming on the
witness stand testifying to shit that should never have come under
anybody's scrutiny but Hilary's.
![[IMAGE]](http://mfinley.com/gif/finley.gif)
I just got my author's copies of a new book from Financial Times Management (London), MASTERS OF THE WIRED WORLD: Cyberspace Speaks Out.What's remarkable is that this collection of manifestos about the new age a'dawning contains proclamations by Tony Blair, Al Gore, Charles Handy, Nicholas Negroponte, Arthur C. Clarke, Alvin Toffler ... and me.
One of the leitmotifs of the impeachment proceedings has been shamelessness. How dare the president remain in office, waving at the public, meeting with popes and potentates as if he were still legitimate in the eyes of the world?
Even Nixon had enough sense of shame to resign, they say. As did Speaker-elect Bob Livingston. Remember the killing question asked of Joe McCarthy: "At long last sir, have you no decency?")
And how shameless is the public, if it forgives, and even exalts, this awful man after the rotten things he did, and the lies he told and poormouth excuses he made in the aftermath?
These are good questions, and they arise from a great truth. Shame is the great social power, because it achieves a high degree of coercion and conformity without violence. It is the flexing of moral muscle. It, more than any other emotion or human characteristic, keeps us on the straight and narrow. Theologians rightly called out, in the wake of the situational "anything goes" ethics of the 1960s, for the restoration of guilt and shame to respectability.
So why do 60%-70% of Americans, while acknowledging Clinton's shamelessness, not want him removed from office?
I don't think it's just his hand in creating general prosperity. I believe Americans see through the morality tale on display, and relate to Clinton's shame. Just as blacks conceded O.J. Simpson's likely guilt in the crime of murder, but rejoiced in his acquittal, because it held a corrupt system up to the light of day, many Americans know what it is like to be disgraced, and admire Clinton's determination not to be run out of town in the name of country-club gentility.
There are many millions of people out here who have done things that much of the world will not forgive. Who have done time in jail, or suffered through a public trial, or been held up to public ridicule. But because they are not well-born, they don't have the option of slinking off to their estates and writing their memoirs. They have to go out every day and brave the gauntlet afresh. They see Clinton braving that gauntlet, and even grinning right back at it, and they know how tough it is to summon that steel, but how necessary to survival, and they say, "Right on."
Stack the cultural imperative to act proper and exhibit public shame, against other imperatives we hear and feel:
If you are knocked down, get right back up again. If at first you don't succeed, try again. Never quit. Stand your ground. Never let them see you sweat. Don't let the bastards get you down. Keep on keeping on. Give 'em hell.
For better or worse, America is a place where people are given great latitude to screw up. We have bankruptcy laws to rescue people from financial imprudence. We have no-fault auto insurance to protect us against bad judgment behind the wheel. We have judicial guidelines allowing judges to overlook first-time offenses, and crimes of youthful impulse. We have safety nets to keep people from destroying themselves.
This is the birthplace and the home of the second chance. How can we give everyone we see the benefit of this generosity, but withhold it from our president?
And if our hatred of him is so great that we deny him this customary American forgiveness -- who then should be ashamed?
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Get your signed copy of The NEW Why Teams Don't Work by Mike & Harvey Robbins from Berrett-Koehler Publishers Just click on the book cover! A fully revised second edition of this award-winning classic by Harvey Robbins and Michael Finley Paperback
Winner, Financial Times/Booz Allen & Hamilton Global Business Book Award, Best Management Book - The Americas, 1995
|
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