First Reactions to the World Foresight Forum. A Note About Empowerment.

I find the idea of “inspirational leadership” vacuous. The excitement of an individual about a topic or an idea, top-down inspiration, is bullshit.

What if I told you that I don’t want someone to tell me what to do or how to think. What if I don’t want someone to precipitate that “inspired”, energized feeling in me. What if I can only feel genuine attachment to any project or idea if I myself came across that moment.

What if I want from my leader is the power to act on ideas I already possess?

Leaders up to now don’t have an incentive to empower. They inspire for a reason. They want to shape their future, their constituents’ future. They don’t often give up that ability to change it.

My peers in the Middle East are fighting and dying for that power. They are making the change they want to see in the world.

In the West, we’re still busy drinking the messianic Kool Aid. We hold out hope for a savior which will not come. It’s here already, inside us all.

I will not go to a square and throw stones. Though, I sympathize with the stone-thrower. Power is a glass house, and its inhabitants are usually naked.

Mine is a fight consisting of speaking truth to power.

There are a number of countervailing forces which hinder, trivialize, or prevent individual or collective success. We are better than that, can to better than this. I hope.


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