Permission to Panic

As I indicated a few weeks ago (see here), I am currently reading John Ralston Saul’s, Voltaire’s Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West” (buy it at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net). The central theme of the book is that reason and logical analysis are responsible for the emergence of the society that is not healthy. In chapter 8, “Learning How to Organize Death”, he has an interesting comment on leadership and a critical characteristic required of great leaders – leaders who are not trapped by logical analysis.

“The ability not to panic has been turned into one of the great virtues of the last hundred years. Not only military, but all sectors of leadership are judged on this ability. Everywhere we hear businessmen, bankers, bureaucrats, politicians and generals calming us with expert tones; indicating that we may relax and follow their expert lead. The rational method has become the cool approach of the insider.What is this an air of superiority based upon? Where are the examples to prove that a cool knowledge advances the cause of civilisation? In reality the ability to panic has always been one of the great strengths of those in positions of command.

To panic doesn’t necessarily mean to turn and run. Intelligence and a sense of dignity usually allow the maintenance of external composure. Self-doubt combined with dignity is central to competent leadership. And men or an organisation, even a society, capable of profound, internal panic is able to recognise when he or it is on the wrong track and perhaps to identify the error by giving in to the need for complete re-evaluation. Out of that revaluation may come the right track.The man of reason, as we currently understand him, is incapable of this panic. He carries about within himself such expertise and structure that he has absolute assurance. Thanks to his intellectual tools, he can always prove, even when surrounded by self-generated disaster, that he is right….

The ability to respond to circumstances – Sun Tzu’s key to strategy – is only possible, of course, if the leader is able to scramble his preconceptions. The internal strength required to let oneself panic lies at the heart of that ability. Not only has 20th-century military training ignored its strength, it has concentrated actively on stamping out any signs of such individual intelligence in the professional officer.”

Page 196-7.

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