I mean I guess but it seems like honest police or benevolent kings - they can exist in fiction but then the fiction loses any relevance to the real world.
I would rather children are inspired to not be leaders at all. Good role models can exist, they’re just never in a position of social power.
Power is inherently corrupting. History shows this time and again. Popular wisdom captures this. Neuroscience shows that power supresses a human brain’s capability for empathy.
In the real world, pursuing individual power always results in far more evil than good. Stories that whitewash the reality of power do not make the world better.
I’ve noticed that whenever there’s a group of people together, someone will be the leader, it doesn’t matter who the group are, there will be a leader & everyone will know it.
Now that leader has a choice to be a bully, or someone who tries not to be a leader.
So yes we absolutely need to train our kids what good (inclusive) leadership looks like, so they can either follow those people, or be those people.
That’s a neurological impossibility and we don’t gain anything by pretending otherwise.
whenever there’s a group of people together, someone will be the leader
You have a friend who’s always exerting their will over everyone else? This is thankfully not my experience.
Hierarchy has definitely infected our lives and thinking to a sickening extent. People pursuing power for what they see as good is the problem. Trying to influence what the power-hungry see as good is a fools errand because the effect that power has on the brain means “good” will always become “good for me” as you gain power.
The only way to a better world is people rejecting the self destructive desire to stand above. We need stories and social infrastructure that works towards that goal.
Unfortunately reality is that some kids are going to grow up to be in charge of things. Better they have examples of fictional leaders who aren’t monsters to hopefully sway them at least a little bit to stand up for what is right than to just go off the real life monstrous leaders they see and use the “everyone’s doing it excuse”.
I mean I guess but it seems like honest police or benevolent kings - they can exist in fiction but then the fiction loses any relevance to the real world.
Kids can still aspire to be like them. Would you rather some kid grows up to be in a leadership position who’s been inspired by Trump?
I would rather children are inspired to not be leaders at all. Good role models can exist, they’re just never in a position of social power.
Power is inherently corrupting. History shows this time and again. Popular wisdom captures this. Neuroscience shows that power supresses a human brain’s capability for empathy.
In the real world, pursuing individual power always results in far more evil than good. Stories that whitewash the reality of power do not make the world better.
I’ve noticed that whenever there’s a group of people together, someone will be the leader, it doesn’t matter who the group are, there will be a leader & everyone will know it.
Now that leader has a choice to be a bully, or someone who tries not to be a leader.
So yes we absolutely need to train our kids what good (inclusive) leadership looks like, so they can either follow those people, or be those people.
That’s a neurological impossibility and we don’t gain anything by pretending otherwise.
You have a friend who’s always exerting their will over everyone else? This is thankfully not my experience.
Hierarchy has definitely infected our lives and thinking to a sickening extent. People pursuing power for what they see as good is the problem. Trying to influence what the power-hungry see as good is a fools errand because the effect that power has on the brain means “good” will always become “good for me” as you gain power.
The only way to a better world is people rejecting the self destructive desire to stand above. We need stories and social infrastructure that works towards that goal.
Unfortunately reality is that some kids are going to grow up to be in charge of things. Better they have examples of fictional leaders who aren’t monsters to hopefully sway them at least a little bit to stand up for what is right than to just go off the real life monstrous leaders they see and use the “everyone’s doing it excuse”.