Reading Samet’s anthology, one sees how starkly perspectival leadership is. From the inside, it often feels like a poorly improvised performance; leading is like starring in a lip-synched music video. The trick is to make it look convincing from the outside. And so the anthology takes pains to show how leaders react to the ambiguities of their roles. In one excerpt, from the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, Samet finds him marching toward an enemy camp. Grant, a newly minted colonel who has never commanded in combat, is terrified: “My heart kept getting higher and higher, until it felt to me as though it was in my throat.” When the camp comes into view, however, it’s deserted—the other commander, Grant surmises, “had been as much afraid of me as I had been of him.” Leaders, he realizes, are imagined to be fearless but aren’t; ideally, one might hide one’s fear while finding in it clues about what the enemy will do.
Lisa Levinson on 21 Jul 15"Yet with the 2016 elections looming and a spirit of economic populism spreading throughout the nation, that view of Occupy's impact is changing. Inequality and the wealth gap are now core tenets of the Democratic platform, providing a frame for other measurable gains spurred by Occupy. The camps may be gone and Occupy may no longer be visible on the streets, but the gulf between the haves and the have-nots is still there, and growing. What appeared to be a passing phenomenon of protest now looks like the future of U.S. political debate, heralded by tangible policy wins and the new era of activist movements Occupy inaugurated." Article on the lasting impact of Occupy Wall Street on today's political, social, and environmental debates in this country and abroad.
