Bitter at the Top (leadership style war - Knowledge or focused management?

[papau]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/15/opinion/15BROO.html

OP-ED COLUMNIST
Bitter at the Top
By DAVID BROOKS Published: June 15, 2004


It's been said that every society has two aristocracies. The members of the aristocracy of mind produce ideas, and pass along knowledge. The members of the aristocracy of money produce products and manage organizations. In our society these two groups happen to be engaged in a bitter conflict about everything from S.U.V.'s to presidents. You can't understand the current bitter political polarization without appreciating how it is inflamed or even driven by the civil war within the educated class.

<snip>Instead, the contest between these elite groups is often about culture, values and, importantly, leadership skills. What sorts of people should run this country? Which virtues are most important for a leader?

Knowledge-class types are more likely to value leaders who possess what may be called university skills: the ability to read and digest large amounts of information and discuss their way through to a nuanced solution. Democratic administrations tend to value self-expression over self-discipline. Democratic candidates — from Clinton to Kerry — often run late.

Managers are more likely to value leaders whom they see as simple, straight-talking men and women of faith. They prize leaders who are good at managing people, not just ideas. They are more likely to distrust those who seem overly intellectual or narcissistically self-reflective. <snip>

Many people bitterly resent it when members of the other group hold power. Members of the knowledge class tend to think that Republican leaders are simple-minded, uncultured morons. Members of the business class tend to think that Democratic leaders are decadent elitists. In other words, along with the policy and cultural differences that divide the groups, there are disagreements on these crucial questions: Which talents should we admire most? Which path to wisdom is right? Which sort of person deserves the highest status?<snip>

[SharonAnn]

1. But our aristrocracy of money doesn't produce products or

anything else. Except, of course, for money in their pockets.

They have tapped into the national treasury and are siphoning off the money of the taxpayers. They're not producing anything.

[papau]

2. Kaus says Brooks is wrong because the Rich are the intellectuals

GOPer Kaus says Brooks is wrong because the Rich are the intellectuals - or at least that the intellectuals are more rich than the group that appreciates the focus on money and management - so Class war between rich and not rich, or as Brooks put it - between leadership that values intellect over focused management - is really the war of the Dem Intellectuals on the rest of the good folks!

http://slate.msn.com/id/2102469/

How Kerry Took the Philippines
For Ronald Reagan!
By Mickey Kaus
Posted Tuesday, June 15, 2004, at 4:24 PM PT

<snip> The real cultural conflict of the future, then, is more likely to be between the unified rich-and-educated bobo elite and the less-educated less rich non-elite. This has not happened with full-force yet. ...


1) Narcissim of small differences. Everyone's a democratic capitalist now. We're fighting over whether the top tax rate should be 20% or 35%. The only way to make that relatively mild difference compelling is to make it personal;

2) Gerrymandering!

3) Technologies like direct mail, cable TV and the Web that enable identification, organization and mobilization of smaller, more intense, ideologically "pure" groups;

4) Pursuit of social change through constitutional rulings by unelected courts--which, as Prof. Robert Nagel argues, is always enraging to the losing side, which is unable to bargain politically for half-satisfaction and which gets told not only that it has lost but that it is wrong, un-American and dumb;

5) Democratic liberal interests groups (e.g. unions, affirmative action recipients) trying to cling to their special little deals despite the collapse of New Deal liberalism as an underlying consensus ideology;

6) Breakdown of the personal-private barrier, concurrent with an increase in the value placed on candor and openness--so Clinton's philandering required a degree of deeply aggravating public lying (and lying about the lying) that FDR, Ike, JFK, and LBJ's activities did not.

[left is right]

3. Democratic candidates — from Clinton to Kerry — often run late.

So * has greater character than Clinton because he is always on time? Oh wait, wasn't * 15 minutes late for his appointment with the Pope?