First thoughts on followership

Woodley has noted two important prerequisites for the political right to present a positive political platform:

1. A positive case for hierarchy, rather than a “lesser of evils” argument.
2. A positive ideal for good followership, as opposed to individualist ethics and the more obvious need for better leadership at all levels.

One of the first things I learned after embracing the idea of extreme ownership is that, like leadership in general, it’s not for everybody. Not even for me, I only LARP as such in keeping with my belief that genius is most effectively accomplished by getting one’s fingers into the problem up to the armpits with no gloves on (this optimizes for getting a “feel” of the problem at the expense of common sensibility). Indeed, it’s autistic and inappropriate to expect everyone to act like independent contractors, all expressing the spirit of entrepreneurship in a society of equals. If this is an ideal (and it’s not), then this expectation expresses the virtue in isolation from and out of balance with the other virtues (thus making it a perversion).

We should expect, realistically, that most people ought to aspire to the virtues of ideal followership rather than being responsible for the fate of the community at large. Such things are too big for the average heart, which is more optimally suited to the not-insignificant leadership requirements of the nuclear family. Husbands must lead their wives and older children, and mothers must lead their young children. The common sense wisdom occurs to me, then, that the nuclear family is the best model for good followership, so that the virtues of a good maiden, wife, or child also tend to be those of a good follower (with a few particularist exceptions, such as sexually gratifying one’s husband but not one’s leader). E.g. “It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman and in a wide house.”

This post is inspired by Charlton’s passing note on the subject:

If motivation is primary – then obedience requires discernment

I keep returning to the fact that it is motivation that is primary; and/but real motivation must be inferred (since it is so easily denied, disguised or concealed). Such inference is called discernment, and it is unavoidable.

If you obey somebody or some-thing (e.g. some institution, including a church) then this does not absolve you of responsibility; rather it means that you have taken responsibility for that person or thing.

Specifically, when your belief in specifics is obedient to some external person-thing, then you are responsible for the motivations of that which you have chosen to obey.

Because you have-chosen that obedience (including having chosen not to choose, but just going-along).

For example; if you have chosen to make a master of an habitual or manipulative liar, and to obey a liar; and if you then believe the lies, defend the lies, propagandise for the lies — then you yourself are a liar, and you are spiritually-responsible for those lies.

That’s just the way it is; whether you like it or not.

The most obvious example of this concept to readers of this blog will be the lesson from Trump mania.

What I take from all this is that, like a woman choosing a husband, the most important task by far for a follower is to choose the right leader to cast their lot with. And like women, choosing no leader at all except the tides of popular opinion guarantees failure 100% of the time, although no one tells you this in school (FGToW? WGToW?). For this choice, the best advice we could give is to choose a leader whose professed vision and values are Christian godliness (or to be syncretistic, whatever flavor of Pagan idealism you think is a sustainable value system), whose revealed preferences match their professed vision and values, and who has at least good enough judgment to navigate his way out of a cardboard box. The reason this matters is once you have a king over you the only appeals you can make are to the thing that rules over him, i.e. if he talks a big game about his Christianity but doesn’t act like it, don’t be surprised when your Christian appeals fall on deaf ears. That doesn’t mean you should expect him to judge every appeal in your favor, since sheep/women/children tend to whine a lot about shit they don’t understand and call it injustice, but on those occasions when he knows you’re right and there’s actually been an injustice he ought to make right your cries will have the leverage to pull on his heartstrings.

I suspect getting this part of followership right will yield 80% of the results. For further meditations on what ideal archetypal followership looks like, see Proverbs 31.