The Tyranny of the Extroverts
20th March 2011
Society rewards extroverts. They get the job, the money, the girl (or boy), and the front page. Fortune 500 companies are run by 499 extroverts, plus Bill Gates. There are 435 extroverts in the House of Representatives and 100 in the Senate, two from each state. In fact, the only introvert in the District of Columbia is David Souter.
If “interpersonal skills” really means skills, then I can’t object, but I’m afraid that in the wrong hands it means something more like “interpersonal style”, and in particular it means the style of extroverts. I have the same concern about “communication skills.” People have different styles; if my style isn’t the same as yours, does that mean I lack skills?
As for teamwork, well, I’m sure there are some problems that are best solved with collaborative, active learning, but I am equally sure that there are problems you can’t solve with your mouth open.
March 20th, 2011 at 10:49
I touched on this in a blog post a while back about randomly selecting people to serve in government, rather than using elections to choose people:
“People who are less likely to get into politics would suddenly have a voice in the leadership. Introverts, agreeable people who won’t claw their way to the top, and women, for example, would get into government.”
The post’s link:
http://michaelkenny.blogspot.com/2009/10/randomocracy.html
March 20th, 2011 at 12:38
William F Buckley Jr was famous for having said that he would rather be governed by the first 200 names in the Boston telephone directory than the faculty of Harvard, and I can’t say that he was wrong. Classical Athens chose all of their public bodies, from the assemblies that passed legislation to the juries that decided legal cases, through sortition; I think that this would be an interesting way to pick Congressmen.
March 21st, 2011 at 20:41
We’d get rid of all this campaigning, which would be great. Officials would have one job, to govern, rather than the two jobs they have now, to get reelected, and to govern.