I believe what Martin Luther King said about the arc of the moral universe; it bends toward justice. But the path in America has been anything but straight forward. Formerly enslaved people were ignored, then counted as partial persons, then given voting rights, then regularly prevented from voting, and today still face life-altering discriminatory challenges. Women in our country were chattel, then gained the vote, but still donโt fully control their personal reproductive rights. Immigrants, essential to our economy and way of life, are often treated collectively as criminals while being denied due process for gaining American citizenship. Voters of all persuasions are still disenfranchised when political boundaries are drawn to bene๏ฌt one party.
We arenโt there yet, but I am grateful to live in a nation where we discuss and experiment with how to better bend that arc. My conservative friends fear we tread a slippery slope through socialism toward communism. I disagree and feel great satisfaction in observing how our system of governance has allowed us to implement policies and programs that swing between conservative and progressive ideals, while we the people gain insight into our fundamental collective problems and the best practice solutions for solving them.
But we have arrived at a time when our system of governance is compromised by leadership that is dysfunctional and corrosive. A mentor who researched and studied leadership categorizes its forms this way:
- Coercive โ threat and punishment
- Reward โ favors, recognition, payment
- Legitimate โ by virtue of the oMice
- Expert โ based in specialized knowledge
- Charismatic โ admiration and aMection
- Servant โ moral/spiritual bond; growth of the โledโ
Each form has its appropriate time and place, but history and our life experience tell us that the most successful group endeavors spring from eMective servant leadership. The reliance on coercive and reward leadership from our President and his administration and the absence of traditional guardrail roles from the other two branches of government have brought us to a very divided and dangerous place.
What can we do to right the ship and continuing bending the arc? The answer is to elect leadership that will debate issues while placing the search for the common good ahead of personal aggrandizement and greed. Character counts. Vote as if your life depended on it!
Keith Porter Grass Valley