Pride and Prejudice and Politics
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND POLITICS
From my short tenure in politics, I have discovered that personality, pride and prejudice play a far larger role in the decision making process than I had first imagined.
When we interact with people in their "official" capacity we believe that they respond to us "officially" and that their personal feelings do not enter into their actions and responses. This is often the case when we pay our taxes at the Sheriff's Office or file a case with the Circuit Court Clerk or record a Deed or Will in the Office of the Clerk of the County Commission. Those interactions of the public with elected officials are mechanical in nature.
However, when elected officials, myself included, are faced with making decisions rather than just performing ministerial acts, they should try to separate their pride and prejudices from their reason and logic. This is very difficult to do. For example, when a person sits on a jury, the tendency is to "pick a side" at the very beginning, like watching a football game, and sticking with that chosen side until the game is finished. I have found that people once having made a decision are hard pressed to give it up. This tendency to hold on to initial positions and remaining closed to new ideas inhibits political growth. Our community must embrace new ideas as we are faced with new challenges and new problems. We can not do the same thing over and over again and expect new results. "We cannot solve today's problems using the mind-set that created them." Albert Einstein.
County Commissioners are often presented with controversial issues. These issues do not exist in isolation like problems in Euclidean geometry or pure mathematics, but rather are surrounded and often clouded by the feelings and emotions of their proponents or detractors. So in matters like the Snowshoe Sewer Project, fees for solid waste, land use planning, wilderness, allocation of space at the Court House, budgets etc., the voices of reason are sometimes hard to hear over the volume and din of argument and the drafting of clear plans can be smeared and smudged by personalities and personal agendas. Commissioners themselves are not free from emotional reactions when we become embroiled in these controversies. However, I believe it is our duty to understand always that the issues are "before us" and not "about us". The issues are always about the people we were elected to serve. We must maintain that separation and remain focused the on issues not on the emotions, pride and prejudices of ourselves. "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others." John Andrew Holmes
Please do not misunderstand; being responsive to the feelings and sentiments of the community is very important. No one exists outside of their emotions. How people feel about things is often an expression of their values and beliefs which must be accounted for and respected. As Commissioners I believe we must try to find what those values are which lay beneath the pride and prejudice of ourselves.
Let us all try to reason together as best we can; respect each other and listen and be open to new ideas. Personal attacks and the intentional infliction of emotional distress, under the banner of free speech and the self-righteous smoke screen of uncovering wrong-doing, are divisive and reprehensible tactics which ultimately turn upon those that make the attacks. These damaging public slanders and libels reduce responsible discussion to grunting in the slop-trough of grudges or shouting "nanny nanny boo boo" in an elementary school yard.
Let us try to get along.