A lot of people suffer from a lack of self-awareness. With some people it reaches a level where it turns into farce, and in the case of some politicians around the world into something dangerous.
Power does something to some people who can’t handle it, or have never been in a situation in their lives where they are told they are wrong.
I have seen it many times in reporting on political leaders where the privileged - Boris Johnson - or leaders from more ordinary backgrounds like Margaret Thatcher, gradually sink into a kind of paranoid, God Complex state and have to be forced out of office by those around them with greater sanity.
Johnson is from a privileged background and part of the elite that exists in the UK. He is irresponsible in the extreme having been sacked for lying at least twice and fathering numerous illegitimate children. He is lying in office now and that is well documented if you have time to Google <Boris Johnson lies>
Thatcher was Prime Minister for fifteen years and while not from an elite background she sank into a torpor of paranoia and was forced from office. To be fair, many leaders become more paranoid the longer they are in office and it is certainly not uncommon. It’s why most countries only allow a certain time in high office before an individual has to step aside.
What worries me is the current Mayor of Taipei, we seem to have a disarray of personality that combines the worst of both these examples. I’ve already written about the God Complex and the Dunning-Kruger effect, but the quote I saw the other day from him took my breath away.
It was used in 2016 in an article by one of my ex-students at Tai Da.
"I am smart enough and I work hard. I know that, but I also believe that after Ko Wen-je, there will be no Ko Wen-je. Following the Ko Wen-je phenomenon...2016... there will not be a next one. It is very difficult. Maybe someone will come out in every generation, and there will be another one in the future. Yes, but sometimes a masterpiece is only once."
Also remember that in 2015 the Apple Daily quoted him as saying "I am the one chosen by God to save Taiwan."
An open display of colossal arrogance is hard to stomach at the best of times, but when you combine this with an ego that has clearly been allowed to run riot by the dimwitted sycophants he has surrounded himself with, things start to look extremely worrying. Combine this with an equally dimwitted wife and an elderly mother who both keep chipping in saying what a genius he is and you have a recipe for a psychological disaster.
His descent into paranoia is also fascinating. I covered Margaret Thatcher towards the end of her premiership and there are striking similarities, although even Thatcher was not daft enough to just blindly blame everyone but herself for anything that went wrong. She had more respect for the public than that, even as her delusions became ever grander.
Not so Ko, who has such a low opinion of people that he just tries to lay the blame off anywhere he can. It is distressing when so-called leaders are so desperate and disturbed that they insult ordinary people by insisting they are perfect and anything that does not go right is someone else’s fault.
His angry outbursts when a carefully stage-managed press conference goes wrong and a reporter is brave enough to ask a difficult question, quickly results in a jabbing finger and a raised voice as the self-control slips away amid a barrage of excuses and the paranoid delusion that it’s all the fault of the media and a grand plot by political rivals.
This is when you get a glimpse of his real self and Mr Hyde shows through Dr Jekyll. Maybe he is having too many conversations with God.
It’s good his time as Mayor is coming to an end and his stated aim of being President, I’m happy to say, is looking more remote as each day goes by simply because of his arrogance, lack of any real talent in the job, ridiculous support team, Facebooking wife and loose-lipped mother.
He is rightly a laughing stock and the sad thing is he doesn’t seem to realise it, and strikes such a pathetic and lonely figure that I almost feel sorry for him.
Walking round the market yesterday with trousers up and a delivery trolley in tow, was telling. Surely, having banged on about the kind of shopping trolleys you buy in the 10-dollar store he drags around a 7-11 style delivery trolley.
Didn’t anyone in his army of advisors think to pop out and buy one for the photo-opportunity. Clearly not, and they just popped to the caretakers office in the basement and borrowed his.
Or maybe his advisors are not really not stupid at all. Maybe they realise how dangerously flawed, immature and dense this man is that they are deliberately trying to undermine him. Is their great aim to make him look so ridiculous that his pitch at the Presidency will fizzle out and we will never hear from him again. Maybe they are all spies secretly working for the DPP?
They are certainly good at making him look like the fool he undoubtedly is.
Maybe we will all end up thanking them?
Tinkerty Tonk
《 不會再有下一個了 － 希望如此 》 很多人有缺乏自我意識的困擾，這種情形在一些人身上到達某種程度就會變成鬧劇，而放到世界各地的一些政治人物身上，會變成危險。 權力對某些人有一定的影響，尤其是對那些無法駕馭權力的人，或是那些一輩子從來沒有被告知他們犯錯的人。 我在報導政治領袖時多次看到這種情況，不論是來自特權階級的英國現任首相強生，或是出身平凡的前首相鐵娘子柴契爾夫人，在位時他們都逐漸陷入一種偏執的、上帝情結的狀態，最後終究會被周圍比他們更清醒的人趕下台。 強生來自權貴背景，是還存在英國的菁英階級。他極端不負責任，至少兩次因為撒謊被革職，並且有不少私生子，即使在目前的職位上他還在繼續撒謊。如果你有時間谷歌，只要搜索 <強生說謊>就可以。 柴契爾夫人當了 15 年的首相，雖然不是來自菁英背景，但她一樣陷入了偏執的麻木，最後被迫下台。 公平地說，許多政治領袖在任時間越長就越偏執，這當然沒什麼稀奇，或許這就是為什麼大多數國家對高位者有任期限制。 令我擔心的是現任台北市長，因為在他身上我們似乎看見性格混亂，而且綜合了以上兩個例子最壞的一面。我已經寫過關於上帝情結和克魯格效應的文章，但最近看到一些他說過的話，還是讓我倒吸了一口氣。 以下這段訪問來自我在台大新聞研究所開課時選課的前學生，她當時在風傳媒工作。 「我是夠聰明夠用功，這我是知道，但我也相信很多東西柯文哲之後，就沒有柯文哲了，柯文哲現象2016之後還是沒有下一個，很困難。也許江山代有人出，以後還會再有，但是有時候一個masterpiece（指自己是傑作）就是only once（只有一次的傑作）」 蘋果日報在 2015年也引用他的話：「我是被上天選擇的人，來挽救台灣的。」 就算在最好的情況下，公開表現出巨大的傲慢已經令人難以忍受，而進一步與自我結合起來時，事情開始看起來非常令人擔憂，因為這個自我，很明顯已經被他安置在自己周圍那些愚蠢的馬屁精們無限放大。再加上同樣不是那麼聰明的妻子和母親，她們不停加入說他是一個多麼天才的人，這時候災難食譜已經自動寫好了。 他陷入偏執狀態一事也很吸引人，柴契爾夫人擔任首相後期我在英國採訪國會，我發現了驚人的相似之處，不過柴契爾夫人沒有那麼愚蠢，沒有盲目地將所有的錯誤歸咎於除了她自己之外的任何人。即使最後她的妄想越來越嚴重，她對大眾的尊重還是有的。 但是對台北市長而言似乎不是如此。他對他人的評價如此之低，以至於一有機會就把錯誤歸咎於人。所謂的領導者無計可施並且焦躁不安，他們堅持自己是完美的，任何不正確的事情都是別人的錯，這對普通人是一種侮辱，也是令人痛苦的。 在精心安排的記者會上，記者有足夠的勇氣提出一個棘手的問題時，他的憤怒立刻爆發，很快導致揮舞手臂提高聲量，他的自我控制似乎在一大堆藉口和偏執中消失了。在他想像之中，這都是媒體的錯，是政治對手的巨大陰謀。 這是你瞥見他真實自我的時候，一如化身博士書中海德先生通過哲基爾博士發現自己。也許他與上帝的對話太多了。 化身博士 (Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) 這本書講述了體面的哲基爾博士 (Jekyll) 喝了自己配制的藥劑，人格分裂出邪惡的海德先生 (Hyde) 的故事。 這是 1886 年蘇格蘭作家 Robert Louis Stevenson 的名作，因書中人物哲基爾和海德善惡截然不同的性格讓人印象深刻，後來「Jekyll and Hyde」一詞成為心理學「雙重人格」的代名詞。曾多次被改編為音樂劇、電影等。 台北市長的任期即將結束是件好事，我得承認我很高興他想當總統的既定目標看起來似乎越來越遙遠，因為他的傲慢，因為在工作上缺乏任何真正的天賦，因為荒謬的支持團隊，還有他勤於在臉書上發文的妻子和無法住口的母親。 因此他理所當然地成為笑柄，可悲的是他似乎並沒有意識到這一點，而這樣一個可憐而孤獨的形象，幾乎讓我為他感到難過。 昨天他穿著高腰褲，拖著一輛手推車在市場裡走來走去，這很能說明問題的所在。當然，在他大力宣傳要去市場的市民應該到生活百貨店買菜籃車之後，他卻是拖著一輛 7-11 風格的送貨手推車。 難道他的幕僚顧問大軍中，沒有人想到為了這個媒體拍照的機會去買一台菜籃車？顯然沒有，他們可能只是跑到批發市場地下室去借了這台手推車。 或者，其實他的顧問們一點也不傻。也許他們意識到這個人的缺陷有多麼危險，多麼不成熟，多麼不聰明，因此他們故意破壞。他們的偉大目標是讓他看起來如此荒謬，以至於他想成為總統的目標會逐漸泡沫化，然後我們就再也聽不到他的消息了嗎？ 說不定他們都是 DPP 臥底的間諜？ 那麼他們當然會努力，讓人覺得毫無疑問他是個傻瓜。 也許我們最終都會感謝他們？ Tinkerty Tonk... 掰掰。
