Being the boss

Americans have a peculiar attitude toward authority

North Americans are very strange in about every way. But it is our love/hate obsession with and repulsion to authority that just might best define us.

In our cultural fabric, there is a strong thread of lust of power and control. And the resistance of anyone exercising – or attempting to exercise - power and control over us.

And freedom. Even though we argue – even fight – about what “freedom” might be – and who does – and doesn’t – deserve it.

But we, more than most other cultures, carry, live up to and aspire to very different meanings to those words.

In our cultural messaging – songs, movies and political proclamations – we love power and control – but we are not terribly interested in, or even much aware of, personal or public responsibility – or consequences of our actions, statements or, in the case of national identity, our policies and public values.

To most of us, freedom is the right to do what we want to do. it has a become a cliché, a cliché most of our leaders can – and do – live up to.

To many of us, freedom has become the floundering of the toddler, the institutionalized impulsivity of the adolescent.

Ask virtually any American what they deeply and dependably believe in; what they live for, what they would sacrifice for, what they value above all.

You are not likely to get an answer that will inspire you.

You are likely to get vague, generic talking points that are obviously repeated from slogans and popular culture.

Don’t expect insight, or passion, or even anything like a personal proclamation of belief or advocacy.

It would be easy to make the argument that most North Americans did not come here by full and free choice.

Whether it was slavery, indentured servitude, famine, persecution, civil war at home, war or weather extremities, virtually all of us, one way or another, found ourselves forced here.

And then, of course the USA is, and always has been defined by its resistance to authority; whether it is kings, crowns or dynasties, we resent and grate against authority over us.

But authority in our own hands is something else entirely.

Most of us hate being under authority, but we love the idea of being the authority. Especially, at least as lived out by too many politicians and corporate leaders, if accountability can also be delegated.

We might deny it, but most of us love the idea of others being under our authority. Especially if that authority cannot be questioned or challenged.

It’s good to be the king

In our movies and stories, how many girls are dazzled with the visions and ideas of “marrying the prince”?

How many of us are taught, or brought up to assume, that money is power, that power means control and that control means control over others?

Self-control, as most of us never seem to learn, is far more difficult, and vastly more influential than control over others.

And for many, if not all of us, the fullest expression of self-control is in the relinquishment of control – of authority - especially unquestioned authority.

Self-control means, among other things, acknowledging one’s own limitations, one’s fallibility, and even one’s mortality.

Self-control and a sense of commitment to a larger cause and community is the basis of a full and lasting greatness.

But is being the king good for anyone besides the king?

Back when I was teaching English at the college level, one of my writing prompts questions was “What super power would you like to have? And what would you do with it?”

As the academic quarters passed, the answers became simpler, coarser and more self-absorbed.

Like everything perhaps, how students perceive power (and super powers) is largely a reflection and expression of the larger cultural values that we are all immersed in.

Power and authority has, for many, been an opportunity to “give back” to serve, or to make a difference, to leave a legacy.

But that is not necessarily how many currently think of as what power and authority might – or could – be.

A super power is, by definition, a power other people do not have.

You might think that a culture drenched in super heroes who work and fight in defense of everyday people and justice would take that as their cue for the purpose of super powers, but that is not what I heard.

As time wore on, the super power of choice became something that served their interests – and only their interests. A common choice was to be able to be invisible at will.

Students would laugh when they said this, but being able to steal without being caught was seen as an ideal – and their defense was that everyone was doing it – and getting caught was the only downside. Any moral framework – or even the social cost of such a use of a super power did not emerge as a consideration.

I was eliciting their thoughts and my focus was on the generation of ideas and their defense and justification of them.

One of my unstated intentions was to hear them out and see where ideas and proposals would settle across any kind of manageable and enduring moral spectrum.

What I heard was rarely encouraging.

That was a few years ago.

In the USA in 2026 using power and privilege for one’s own benefit has become something like a side hustle for those who have been elected or appointed to public office.

We used to call it corruption, abuse or misuse of public resources, and some still do. But no matter what we call it, we have become accustomed to it, and this corruption, for better or worse, has become the standard operating procedure – one of the “benefits” of public service.

To put it another way, I don’t know if my college age students were a leading indicator of the abandonment of service and integrity for an opportunistic ability or if they were something like an early warning system of an ethical implosion making its way through our society.

Either way, it is not a good sign, and certainly not sustainable.

But even a flaccid moral framework is not permanent – or necessary.

A day of reckoning is inevitable, and the sooner we acknowledge our departure from integrity the easier it will be.

Some day we won’t need fact checkers precisely because we – and those who purport to be our leaders – will make a deliberate effort to be as honest – and willing to accept correction – as any person of integrity would always want to be.