‘My Superiors Use Me Efficiently’
.… I always questioned things—especially my superiors. Over the last month I have stopped this habit… [...] Instead, I take comfort knowing that my time is not taken for granted; my superiors use me efficiently and intelligently. To me, that matters more than you know.
Youth member of some fascist party? Volunteer for one of those scary Christianists Palin associates with? Scientology cultist? Hardcore Communist under Stalin? Psych ward inmate finally giving up?
Nope. The full version:
Being a liberal and a young upstart, I always question things—especially my superiors. Over the last month I have stopped this habit precipitously. My first days were full of questions about why we were doing some things and not others, and if we could do be doing some things more efficiently. But, by and by, the mother brain has earned my respect. Now as I am out on the hilly, often depressed streets of Pittsburgh, I hardly ever think: “What the hell am I doing here?! Is this really necessary?” Instead, I take comfort knowing that my time is not taken for granted; my superiors use me efficiently and intelligently. To me, that matters more than you know.
—Journal: Riding the “Enthusiasm Gap” Home To Pittsburgh, Ryan Kushner, Obama Volunteer
It’s great that Ryan has some faith in the organization he’s working for. But to celebrate the abdication of his critical faculties in such a manner is appalling. It’s true that many people don’t want to think through all their decisions; it’s true that we all need heuristics; it’s true that it’s sometimes okay to trust others to make certain decisions (or at least to trust their judgment with regard to those choices) for us. But to celebrate that, and being “used efficiently”? I grant that it’s probably better than being used inefficiently, but the true point is in the fact of being used, not the efficiency thereof.
Okay, so he’s just one volunteer, he got a little effusive, but nobody else would be celebrating that attitude, right? Well, that post, in fact that specific section(!), was highlighted by Beverly Davis in a roundup of Obama campaign journals. Not with any comments suggesting that perhaps there was something disturbing about such an attitude, either.
Hat tip to Dennis Perrin.