Baa Baa

The history of Jewish leadership usually involves sheep. The patriarchs, Moshe, Dovid—they all spent a good chunk of their lives as shepherds. The reasoning is this: There is no job training for ultimate power like being a caretaker of rams, ewes, and lambs.

This explanation became more tangible to me as I read "Powerful and Coldhearted" by Michael Inzlicht and Sukhvinder Obhi:

Can people in high positions of power — presidents, bosses, celebrities, even dominant spouses — easily empathize with those beneath them?

Psychological research suggests the answer is no. Studies have repeatedly shown that participants who are in high positions of power (or who are temporarily induced to feel powerful) are less able to adopt the visual, cognitive or emotional perspective of other people, compared to participants who are powerless (or are made to feel so).

Interesting. The prevailing theory has been that the higher one gets the less one needs others, and so casts aside any sort of kindness for humankind. But that doesn't sound right to me. Are people only nice because they need something? Earthlings are benevolent, every day, and they know they won't receive anything in return. 

Instead, the authors posit that once the brain is drunk on power, it begins to rewire itself; the sympathetic neurons quit.   

Symptoms of un-empathetic power, I have noticed, can appear in a multitude of situations. The example of the article: 

. . . among full-time employees of a public university, those who were higher in social class (as determined by level of education) were less able to accurately identify emotions in photographs of human faces than were co-workers who were lower in social class. (While social class and social power are admittedly not the same, they are strongly related.)

The older sibling tormenting the younger. The "dance head" demanding perfection from her troop, lest "concert" be ruined. The "popular" friend lording it over the "little people." 

I think of my usually adorable, considerate niece, who suddenly devolves into an obnoxious, insulting monster simply because she has a playdate scheduled for Shabbos afternoon. Being wanted can also manifest as power, and can bring out the worst in us.

Then, she comes home, and gathers up her little brothers, fussing over them and wincing in pain if I have to take them to task. Once she's with her lambs, she's back.