Knowing Your Place

 

Street Fighting Man

Hey! Think the time is right for a palace revolution
But where I live the game to play is compromise solution
Well, then what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock 'n' roll band
'Cause in sleepy London town
There's just no place for a street fighting man, no

What is your place?

Man is a group animal. That means an individual man lives in a group of men. Every group has a leader, a sovereign. The problem is that the best tactics for becoming a leader are not the best tactics  for being a leader.

Leaders are often chosen by domination over challengers for that position  This requires that an individual be better than others, e.g. his challengers. He has the best User Optimal solution.

However once a leader, he should take on a servant’s role for the group. He administers the best System Optimal solution.

The problem is that an individual has a limited life, but the group of which he is member does not have a limited life. Sovereigns will eventually die or be replaced , but the group lives on with a new sovereign. That is meant by the seemingly contradictory phrase the “The King is dead, long live the King.”

Leaders who achieve their position through dominance, seek to prevent challengers to their position, do not wish to have others with power. They wish to surround themselves with those who will protect them, and not protect the group that they are supposed to lead. The only way to remove a dominance leader may be through dominance.

For most members of the group, there is little or no interest in who lead the group. ”Meet  the new boss, same as the old boss.” Dominance sovereigns are tempted to view their position as part of the estate which they can leave to their heirs, not to the group, e.g. Monarchs, but even authoritarians are inclined to believe this. Kim Jong-un, the “Great Leader” of North Korea, is the son of the former leader, Kim Jong-Il, who is the son of the leader before him, Kim Il-sung. In addition to sharing the problem with dominance sovereigns, of being reluctant to give power to anyone else in the group lest that person  challenge them, inherited sovereigns might not even have the best, dominance, User Optimal solution.

In a republic, the sovereign is the group. The United States, in its Constitution, declared that it was a republic. ( As Ben Franklin said, if we can keep it!). The members of its group included all people, living in the States that were being United, without distinction as to race, religion, nationality, citizenship, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age, etc. The only exceptions were Indians who were already members of their own Sovereign Nations, and the provision that chattel slaves counted as only 3/5 of a person ( and chattel slavery was eventually eliminated by the 13^th Amendment).  Officers of the United States NEVER become sovereigns. The sovereignty remains with the People which is why officers of the United States swear an oath to the Constitution, NOT to any individual.

As Senator Corey Booker has said, the most dangerous  words you can utter to an officer of the group are "Do you know who I am?"  The proper response should be "Yes, but don’t worry. I will not let that influence my duty to the group."  Your duty is to the group not yourself, even if you are a leader of that group.

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