{"id":18488,"date":"2013-10-17T17:27:31","date_gmt":"2013-10-17T21:27:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=18488"},"modified":"2013-10-17T17:27:59","modified_gmt":"2013-10-17T21:27:59","slug":"empathy-entitlement-and-leadership-why-you-should-never-vote-for-someone-who-drives-like-a-jerk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/10\/17\/empathy-entitlement-and-leadership-why-you-should-never-vote-for-someone-who-drives-like-a-jerk\/","title":{"rendered":"Empathy, entitlement and leadership: Why you should never vote for someone who drives like a jerk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

It\u2019s very easy to imagine that someone could be an incompetent<\/em>\u00a0driver and still become a good governor. It is impossible, for me, to imagine that someone could be a total jerkwad<\/em> driver and still become a good governor.<\/p>\n

Maryland\u2019s Democratic Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler is apparently a total jerkwad driver<\/a>. He wants to be governor. If he really drives the way a bunch of Maryland state troopers say he does, then the people of Maryland shouldn\u2019t allow that to happen. (Gansler, for the record, says these accusations are overblown \u2014 the result of a personal dispute with the officer in charge of his security detail.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Remember the firestorm when President Obama commended Sonia Sotomayor for empathy? He was right: empathy is essential. One cannot be a good judge, or a good public servant, without it. The kind of aggressive, screw-everybody-else driving Gansler has apparently exhibited shows he doesn\u2019t have the empathy \u2014 the ability to consider and to account for others<\/em> \u2014 that leadership requires.<\/p>\n

A lack of empathy fosters a sense of entitlement, and the last thing we want to be doing is giving more power or authority to people who believe they\u2019re entitled to something more, something special, with no consideration for other people.<\/p>\n

I appreciate that driving in traffic doesn\u2019t bring out the best in most people, and maybe it seems like I\u2019m inflating the significance of Gansler\u2019s apparent risky self-centeredness behind the wheel \u2014 after all, he hasn\u2019t killed anybody, yet<\/em>. But driving like that all the time I think reveals something about character that warns against giving such a person any more power or responsibility that they might abuse, because it strongly suggests that they will<\/em> abuse it.<\/p>\n

The problem with That Guy who cuts to the front in a traffic jam by driving on the shoulder then forcing his way back in farther up the line isn\u2019t just that he\u2019s being unfair to everyone else and putting others at risk. It\u2019s also that he seems to think he\u2019s being smarter<\/em> than all those suckers waiting their turn. It\u2019s a kind of delusion<\/em> \u2014 as a lack of empathy always is. He doesn\u2019t seem to understand that he\u2019s not being exceptionally clever \u2014 that he wasn\u2019t the only driver who recognized it was physically possible to cut in line. He doesn\u2019t understand that what keeps everyone else from doing what he\u2019s doing isn\u2019t their inferior lack of cleverness, but their superior (to him) sense of basic human decency.<\/p>\n

And again, giving more power or more authority to That Guy \u2014 to a person incapable of recognizing basic decency while indulging the fantasy that he\u2019s smarter than everyone else \u2014 is a really bad idea.<\/p>\n

For a darker, more serious look at what a lack of empathy and its consequent sense of entitlement can produce among the powerful, consider the case of former Democratic state Rep. John Arnold<\/a> of Kentucky or of former Democratic Mayor of San Diego, Bob Filner<\/a>. The persistent sexual harassment both men are accused of is another form of that same self-centered sense of entitlement.<\/p>\n

You may have noticed that all three of the officials I\u2019ve named here are Democrats. That\u2019s intentional, because I\u2019m trying to discuss an aspect of personal character here, not policy. Policy is partisan, but character transcends party lines. It\u2019s true that any elected official can do a lot more damage by pursuing a policy agenda that\u2019s based on a lack of empathy and a sense of entitled superiority, but I can\u2019t trust a person to oppose such an agenda when that person, as an individual, displays those very traits \u2014 regardless of whether that individual has a D or an R after their name.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s very easy to imagine that someone could be an incompetent driver and still become a good governor. It is impossible, for me, to imagine that someone could be a total jerkwad driver and still become a good governor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[73,77,27],"class_list":["post-18488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-class-warfare","tag-empathy","tag-justice","tag-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nEmpathy, entitlement and leadership: Why you should never vote for someone who drives like a jerk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It's very easy to imagine that someone could be an incompetent driver and still become a good governor. 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Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Empathy, entitlement and leadership: Why you should never vote for someone who drives like a jerk","description":"It's very easy to imagine that someone could be an incompetent driver and still become a good governor. 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