Role Models

Role Models

by Marco M. Pardi

“There is much difference between imitating a good man and counterfeiting him.” Benjamin Franklin. Poor Richard’s Almanac. 1738

“We copy when we lack the inclination, the ability, or the time to work out an independent solution.” Eric Hoffer. The True Believer. 1951

All comments are welcome and will receive a response.

Social science and developmental psychology text books emphasis the importance of role models in bringing a child to maturity. The emphasis seems to be on characteristics of the person more than on the requirements of the role that person is in. Thus, we are left in the dark about why that person is in that role, what they feel about it, and what they might otherwise have chosen to do. The overall impression is that the role is of a given, unquestionable validity and importance while the person is admirable only to the extent they are able to fit themselves to the role and accept it. We are encouraged to emulate subservience. Fitting in, they call it. “Getting with the program.”

I was quite fortunate. I had no role models while growing up. This was partly aided by having a brother three and a half years older who was diametrically opposite from me, or I from him. Family, family friends, and teachers voiced to me a never ending litany of “Why can’t you be like (him)? When will you settle down and be like (him)?” No one seemed to get it: I was my own person. I had internalized no one else’s measures and standards of success. A helpful fact of genetics was that no one looking at us would take us for brothers.

So, I completely missed that supposedly normal developmental phase of fixating on an older male and deciding I wanted to be “just like him”. An English cleric, Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832) coined the saying, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”. That may be, but carried too far it is the surest way to arrested development. Unchecked, it can even damage the ability to form relationships once someone is moving into what we would normally consider maturity.

For example, while in college in the 1960’s I knew a young man about to graduate. He intended to become a high school history teacher and was quite serious about his mastery of his given subject. Often he spoke of his concern for the high school kids growing up in the era of the worsening Viet-Nam war. He was also quite serious and thoughtful about his relationship to the young woman he intended to marry after graduation and acceptance into a teaching position. She was a very nice, well grounded young woman also graduating with a teaching career in mind.

Then something no one foresaw developed. Bond, James Bond. Sean Connery exploded onto the big screen in a series of “secret agent” films, glamorizing a completely fictitious and silly role, casual sex with an abundance of attractive women, a bar tab exceeding a high school teacher’s yearly income, and a license to kill. Then we suddenly realized our young man was an exact, and I mean exact image of Sean Connery – except that Connery was over one foot taller.

Suddenly what had been his studious afternoons with his fiancee, both of them reading educational materials and writing papers, became marathons of listening to musical soundtracks of Bond films while drinking himself into a solitary stupor on his apartment floor. He and I each lived in off campus housing. On his occasional visits to my rented house he knew I had some handguns, supposedly for sport. He asked me to help him pick one for himself and help him get it. I refused.

I don’t know what became of him. Many would say this was simply “a phase” in his development and would pass. His potential marriage was on very shaky ground. But I wonder how much of his fantasy he carried into the classroom, if he got there. I’m sure every reader can think of someone with a similar profile.

Finding yourself can be surprising; expressing yourself even more so. And herein lies a potentially disabling problem, especially for those in the workforce. That often heard request, said in “jest”, “Tell us what you really think” can be an invitation to career suicide. Some years ago the Christian fundamentalist crowd tried to popularize WWJD, What Would Jesus Do? Leaving aside the utter simple-mindedness of such a question we can still understand its logic: Jesus is, presumably, the role model. You should divine what this imaginary role model would do in a given situation and emulate it as best you can. Of course, the presumption is that others involved in the situation share exactly the same fantasy of Jesus and will therefore admire your adherence to the approved behavior/expressed thought, etc. That is, you won’t get crucified. Or, perhaps Neville Chamberlain is your role model, and you acquiesce to achieve “Peace in our time”.

But is either of these models the real you, and is it possible anyone can be the real you? Ah, but then we parce the traits of our chosen model – and therefore select the likely reactions he or she would likely have to a situation. Years ago I briefly knew two Oscar winning actors (since deceased), an Englishman and a Welshman. I very much enjoyed the personas they cast in their films. But off-screen, with “their hair down”, their skills at character portrayal really became obvious. They were different from the roles for which they were most famous. Perhaps this is why we sometimes have difficulties understanding the “out of character” troubles these people often seem to have. Have any of your actions been described as “out of character”? Perhaps the person who said that really didn’t know you after all.

How about us then? Are we in a malleable “character” from one role – situation – to another? Of course we are. We perceive a situation, form an assessment, and select the persona we think most appropriate to it. I don’t act as a father the same way I did as a son. I’ve written previously of this.

What gets us into trouble, or at least causes trouble for us, is when people take the persona we employed in one situation and expect it to manifest in a completely different situation. And, to be fair, we sometimes do this ourselves. A professor who treats his family as if they were students in his classroom finds, sooner or later, he is not in fact communicating with his family. My advice to anyone who is tempted to see someone as a role model is: Get to know them as a person, in various situations. Then decide if they are worthy of your attention. Of course, that’s a bit deep for a child to understand. But given the way people vote for politicians, it’s a lesson that must be learned. Who would you favor as a role model for your children, Obama or Trump?

About 3,400 years ago Thucydides raised an interesting question: Do the events of history make a great leader, or do great leaders make the events of history? We could add, can a great leader be replicated? Many of us have found that, sooner or later, imitation goes against the grain, either our own or someone else’s. It “rings hollow”.

Often this is learned the hard way. Many of us remember the 1988 Vice-presidential debate in which Dan Quayle, a Republican senator, compared himself to John Kennedy. Lloyd Bentsen, a Democratic senator, replied, “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. You’re, no Jack Kennedy.”

That should be a simple but effective reminder, if not warning, that role models serve limited purposes but if emulation is unchecked it can lead to disaster. Not just social embarrassment, but loss of the true self and what it is truly capable of.

In his book, Twilight of American Sanity, Allen Frances MD, professor emeritus and former Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Duke University, cites statements made by Antonio Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations. Speaking of lessons learned from his wife, a psychoanalyst, Guterres says, “When two people are together they are not two but six. What each one is, what each one thinks he or she is, and what each one thinks the other is…………….One of the roles of the secretary-general when dealing with the different key actors in each scenario is to bring the six into two.”

We can greatly simplify this process, in fact prevent the need for it right from the start. Forget the role models. Ask, WWID: What Would I Do? I. Know it, Be it, Live it.