https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/01/fauci_cuomo_and_postmodern_leadership.html
About a decade ago my wife, two-year-old daughter and I attended a birthday party in the Hollywood Hills. A thirty-something actress with some credits to her name was throwing a bash for her two-year-old daughter complete with petting zoo, two bouncy houses, and the characters from a popular children’s TV program. I suspect 宾语从句that we were invited in the interest of diversity 状语从句because we were normal people with normal jobs.
The crowd was largely comprised of actors, agents, producers, and other Hollywood types, the types of people 定语从句with whom I had grown somewhat accustomed to having lived and worked in Hollywood for 20 years. It was at this party, however, 定语从句where an idea crystallized in my mind.
There were several cast members from Grey’s Anatomy, and one drew my attention. He was an actor in his early thirties 定语从句who played a surgeon in the medical drama. He seemed particularly surly and shallow, even for an actor. The character 定语从句he played on television was a person of great accomplishment, a doctor, a surgeon, someone 定语从句who had spent years studying and sacrificing for his calling. But here, at the party, was a vapid shell of a man 定语从句who made a fortune 分词状语pretending to be a person he was not.
主语从句What struck me was how deferential people were to this actor, and actors like him, 定语从句whose main accomplishment was the ability to pretend 宾语从句they were someone else. It was obvious 主语从句that actors are often, almost always, afforded more respect than the people定语从句 whom they portray.
Some eight years later, my family and I traveled back to the west coast for a relative’s wedding and found ourselves with a similar mix of people. My cousin and I were standing in line to have our photos 分词taken 状语从句when he tapped the shoulder of the woman in front of us 定语从句who happened to be an Academy award-winning actress. He took the opportunity to tell her 宾语从句how much he appreciated and admired her work. It was striking 主语从句how deferential, almost obsequious his praise was状语从句 as if the actress had achieved something greater than pretending to be someone else. To her credit, she was gracious and thanked him for his kind words.
Until the beginning of the twentieth century, actors and other entertainers were viewed with suspicion and were excluded from polite society. In Western civilization, 动名词going back at least as far as the third century BC, actors were viewed as ignominious. Plato held 宾语从句that it was dishonorable主语从句 for a person to assume the honor of another person without any of the associated sacrifices and responsibilities, and for more than two thousand years this was the prevailing view.
It wasn’t until mass media and the resulting mass market主语从句 that this attitude changed. The shift in 名词从句how we view entertainers drastically changed with the formation of newspaper syndicates, radio, television, the motion picture industry and, now, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. An immeasurably important aspect of this shift is 名词从句how we view leadership.
In philosopher Alisdair McIntyre’s 1981 classic After Virtue, the author describes 宾语从句how leadership in the postmodern world has ceased to be judged by excellence, or even effectiveness, and has come to be measured by 名词从句how the politician fulfills the role emotionally. We do not judge our leaders by 名词从句what they accomplish, or how they accomplish, but rather how they conduct themselves in the role of leadership. Do they meet our expectations of 名词从句how we would like our leaders to appear and how they make us feel about ourselves? In short, our political and administrative leaders are actors 分词定语appealing to our emotional wants and needs.
One need look no further than the Emmy award 分词定语bestowed upon Andrew Cuomo for his daily performance as the governor of New York. The fact同位语从句 that his state had more deaths per capita than any other was not the metric 定语从句by which he was judged. Nor was he held accountable for his policies 分词定语returning elderly COVID positive patients to nursing homes, 分词状语thereby condemning thousands of our most vulnerable citizens to death.
Instead, his forceful performance in demanding more ventilators, temporary hospitals, and even a hospital ship was universally received as a portrait of leadership, never mind 宾语从句that these resources, 分词定语secured at federal taxpayer expense, were never significantly utilized. Tens of millions of dollars and valuable resources were expended because of his daily broadcast. Some would agree that an Emmy award makes it all worthwhile.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, 同位语the face of the federal government’s response to COVID, has also been lauded by the media. His face has graced the cover of magazines and he has been a frequent guest on cable and broadcast programs, where he is honored and esteemed. He is treated as the avuncular physician 定语从句who has our best interests at heart. None of the fawning reporters or TV hosts dares ask Dr. Fauci about the cost of the draconian policies 定语从句he has advocated.
In one of the more memorable of the hundreds of interviews 定语从句Dr. Fauci has given, he was asked 宾语从句whether Tinder hookups were a good idea in the time of COVID 定语从句to which the Good Doctor responded宾语从句 that individuals should do their own risk assessment. The pandemic notwithstanding, it is hard 不定式主语to imagine a public health official, particularly one 分词定语specializing in contagious diseases, taking a neutral stance on casual sex.
Dr. Fauci is also the same expert in communicable diseases 定语从句who has strongly advocated for an end to the western tradition of the handshake as a form of greeting. Are we to assume 宾语从句that the Tinder hookup should be considered in a risk-benefit analysis, 分词状语presumably factoring in the desirability of the prospective partner, but we should abandon the ancient and time-tested custom of shaking hands?
In a December broadcast video conference 分词定语featuring Governor Cuomo and Dr. Fauci, Cuomo suggested to Fauci 宾语从句that they team up to produce videos 分词定语promoting vaccination. “We’re like the modern-day De Niro and Pacino,” the governor excitedly proclaimed. It is hard to 不定式主语see clearly in this imagined house of mirrors but, to begin, one would have to focus on the concepts of De Niro and Pacino.
In the context of the governor’s suggestion, De Niro and Pacino are concepts, not real people. It is safe 不定式主语to say 宾语从句that Cuomo was referring to characters 定语从句that the actors had portrayed and not the actors themselves 状语从句because we do not identify with the actors 状语从句as they truly are, rather as we know them through the characters they portray. This leaves us with two individuals 定语从句who portray seasoned bureaucrats 分词定语portraying two actors, 定语从句who in turn are portraying political leaders. Nowhere in this endless loop is there accountability. It is all entertainment.
The question remains: What is it in our culture 定语从句that compels us to exalt actors, politicians, and bureaucrats, not based on the virtues 定语从句they may or may not possess, not based on the contribution of the work 定语从句they do, but rather on how we feel about them? McIntyre warns宾语从句 that this emotivism leads to a dead end. It seems, 分词状语looking back at 2020, that it leads to a train wreck.
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