Isn’t what it was cracked up to be!

As we grope our way forward in the face of seemingly daily shootings of one sort or another, a lot of good and thoughtful people keep calling for new and better leadership to find solutions.

It may just turn out that what we need is not more leaders, or more followers, but more people who simply do things.

Consider Darnella Frazier, the 17-year-old whose ten minutes of witness (and video) outside Cup Foods in Minneapolis ensured that George Floyd’s death would not go unpunished.

What if lack of leadership is not the most important problem?

In 1980, Cari Lightner was killed by a drunken hit-and-run driver in Fair Oaks, California. Her name might have been forgotten, but her mother’s grief led her to form Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which created a movement that has drastically reduced the rate of drunk driving in our country.  

John Boehner – former Republican Speaker of the House — found his own caucus unmanageable. Elected to be leaders, his “Crazytown” cohorts were instead determined to be rabble rousers.

Perhaps the age of leaders has passed. It may be that our “leaders” no longer serve the public good, but their own self-interests in reelection and their friends demands.

That, in turn, suggests the hidden lesson in this matter is not to wish for more and better leadership BUT to nurture much more enlightened non-leaders concerned only with living in a world they are proud to be part of!!

Perhaps the missing element is more individual enlightenment in the presence of obvious necessity?