Thursday, July 9, 2009

Good Answer! Good Answer!

Piggybacking on my Family Feud post from a few days ago, I ran across this Sullivan essay for Time from October 2002. His money quote:

New research has found that self-esteem can be just as high among D students, drunk drivers and former Presidents from Arkansas as it is among Nobel laureates, nuns and New York City fire fighters. In fact, according to research performed by Brad Bushman of Iowa State University and Roy Baumeister of Case Western Reserve University, people with high self-esteem can engage in far more antisocial behavior than those with low self-worth.
This is pretty much my point. We celebrate mediocrity in this country like no other. In Japan, they never settle for B averages or anything less than very high achievement. Those who don't get into the best universities actually bring shame to their families. Here, we'll celebrate when the kid barely graduates high school and starts taking general ed classes at the local junior college.

Could this be what is afflicting the Disaster from Alaska? Having jumped from college to college, had some fair achievements in sports, and strutted the stage in an unflattering one-piece swimsuit, has Sarah Palin grown into someone who simply has such a high-image of herself that she plainly cannot see that she is an epic failure in her chosen field?

Clearly the Peter Principle is alive in her trajectory up the ladder. She has risen to the level of her own incompetence, and it remains to be seen if the GOP believes there's even more to which she can fail upward.

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