by Rushworth M. Kidder
Nations and neighborhoods, facing constant threats, set up military and police forces. Boxers and blackbelts never stop expecting the unexpected. Corporate IT departments create intricate systems to defend computers against viruses. Politicians and candidates….
Why can’t we finish that sentence? How come the thread runs out? Why is it that the John Edwardses of the world — charismatic, intelligent, energized — don’t grasp the need to defend themselves? Not bodily — politicians have all kinds of physical security in place. What’s lacking is mental defense — the capacity to foresee, intercept, and destroy incoming attacks against their thinking.
It’s not as though the career-ending cocktail of sex, lies, and payoffs was unknown before the former North Carolina senator began sipping it in 2006. It’s not as though he’s the first politician ever to end up on a late-night television confessional — as Edwards did last Friday, when his political future suddenly went pear-shaped over revelations about his extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter, a former videographer for his presidential campaign.
And it’s not as though he couldn’t have learned from Eliot Spitzer, Bill Clinton, Gary Hart, and … well, the thread seems to go on forever. The political foothills are littered with the shattered careers of individuals whose personal lusts overcame their private selves in public ways. There’s even a formula for responding: Deny the facts, blame political enemies, retreat into an eerie silence, and then break forth with naval-gazing statements studded with first-person pronouns and words such as “unconscionable” (Clinton), “remorse” (Spitzer), and “ashamed” (Edwards).
Such mea culpas, helpful though they are, miss the important question: What made me do it? The answer is not, “I’m stupid.” These are highly intelligent individuals. They’re also emotionally self-possessed, not given to flights of instability. Nor do they lack conscience: In many ways, their values are sound, moral, and mainstream. Nor is it simply a matter of DNA or testosterone: Even biochemistry can be mastered, as Alcoholics Anonymous proves every day. What’s lacking is something the ancients called wisdom — the judgment that intuitively detects wrong and separates it from right. Without that alertness to danger, there’s little capacity to defend against the subtleties of ego, pride, and exceptionalism. “In the course of several campaigns,” Edwards agonized, “I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic.”
Edwards’s case may be special, given the way he and his wife, Elizabeth, campaigned with their children as the model family and were so public about her health struggles. But the point is larger than this. Let’s call it Edwards’s Law, founded on the military truism that every high-profile target is subject to attack. Whether the threats are physical or mental, the need is for unremitting vigilance. As generals, blackbelts, and nerds know, the threat you can see coming is already two-thirds met. So Edwards’s Law begins with a threat assessment. Is it so difficult to guess what might threaten a handsome, engaging, wealthy male who spends hours alone on the campaign trail surrounded by colleagues but lacking intimacy? Is it so hard to say, “Okay, this is the missile aimed at my fortress — let’s take rigorous steps to thwart it.”
The sad fallout of the Edwards affair is that, when missiles hit, they explode into public cynicism and disaffection. They make us think all politicians have hideous secret lives. Fortunately, that’s not true. It’s quite possible for politicians to live openly, honestly, and successfully — threatened, yes, but wise enough to destroy every threat before it launches.
The challenge for us, as voters, is to mount our own mental defense. The Edwards story could turn people off government altogether. That’s a missile aimed at us. Having seen it coming, we’ve gone a long way toward disabling it. As we maintain our commitment to the political system, while wisely avoiding dangerous characters within it, the rest of the missile self-destructs. In Edwards’s case, it took a promising candidate with it. But it need not destroy the system — unless we let it.
©2008 Institute for Global Ethics
Questions or comments? Write to newsline@globalethics.org.
