Needed: a gentleman farmer

Spoke to my son the other day. He is finishing up basic training at Ft. Benning. Among other questions, I asked him what the drill sergeants were like. He said they were fine, not at all the sadists they are sometimes portrayed as in the movies. He said they were mostly just normal guys who had been assigned the job even if they hadn't necessarily wanted it.

The concept of having people do jobs they don't particularly want has some merit. Over time, the Army must have noticed that certain types gravitated towards the job of drill sergeant, and these were often the people least suited for the job. So they started assigning people that job whether or not they wanted it. This probably saved a lot of recruits a lot of unnecessary grief at the hands of men who wanted free rein to indulge their bullying tendencies.

Often, people gravitate to jobs for the worst of reasons. Child molesters become scout troop leaders, or priests; sadists become interrogators or prison guards. If these jobs were somehow assigned more randomly, there would be fewer of the wrong people drawn to them. A pederast might not be happy working at an old age home, but at least he would have less opportunity to do mischief.

We live in a free society and certainly people should be free to pursue whatever career they want. And nobody would want a society which assigned occupations by lottery. Perhaps what we need is simply more psychological screening for certain jobs -- like scout troop leader or prison guard.

One of the jobs which could use a little more psychological screening is that of politician. Too often, politicians are narcissists and even sociopaths. These are people who crave public approval and just attention in general. Becoming a politician is a complicated process that requires connections, skill at fundraising, and an ability to glibly lie. These are not the skills we would necessarily want in a leader; but they are the ones our system breeds.

Given this, wouldn't it be better for a committee of wise men to just pick a President? This is of course wildly unrealistic: who would pick the committee of wise men? But think of how much better a President we could get.

George Washington, after leading the Revolutionary Army to victory, retired to his farm. According to our history books, he was then essentially drafted to become our first President. He is, to my knowledge, the last man to become President reluctantly. In the last eighty years, most of our Presidents have schemed and plotted and connived and lied their way to the job. (The sole exception might be John F. Kennedy, whose father schemed and plotted and connived JFK's way to the top.)

Wouldn't it be preferable, psychologically speaking, to have someone who didn't so obviously lust for the job? Wouldn't it be better, rather than to have a man who will do or say anything to get the job, to have one whose initial reaction is, I don't really want that job?

To effect this, we would have to pluck someone out of obscurity. Perhaps we could draft a gentleman farmer. Or a war hero. Or a high school teacher. It would certainly be better than our current system of most ambitious (and thus, often, worst) man wins. We might not get someone who was prepared for the stress of the job, but we also wouldn't get an arrogant, dishonest man with a great sense of entitlement, either. The only requirements would be good character and an IQ over 150.

Such a system would probably be unworkable, but it does have its merits.