American Song

Opening of a new Apple Store -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Today is Friday, January 2, 2009. Being a Friday after New Years, many people are taking the day off and thronging to the stores. I’m one of the throng – I just came back from the North Park Apple Store, where there was standing room only. A crowd of about 30 watched a young man demo features of the Leopard OS. I remember when Apple was an acquired taste and only eclectic dweebs like me had any interest in Apple – the times have certainly changed.

I like that Apple has made such a great comeback from near extinction in 1997. One of the things that makes America great is that it’s a place that engenders experimentation and second chances. Steve Jobs may seem the embodiment of Apple but he’s actually not. He certainly finessed the turn-around and much of the product strategy but he isn’t Apple, per se. Apple is a mixture of corporate vision, design strategy, and diligent employees who deliver amazing products within the structure of corporate laws and aesthetic/engineering challenges. If and when Steve Jobs passes from the scene, there should be a chain of successors to assume the reigns (chief of design, Jonathan Ive, possibly).

Another of the things that make America great is that in general we have no entrenched leaders or philosopher kings. Though we have many dynamic, engaging people, they do not prevail forever, nor do they have any implied ownership of our collective world. I’m reminded of the “12th Tradition” embraced by AA and Al-Anon:

“Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.”

These groups seek to keep a focus on the organizations’ primary purpose, diminishing the role of any one person no matter how exciting or instrumental he or she might be. 12-Step groups have done well by this strategy and so for that matter have other institutions like American democracy itself (to some extent). One only has to look at Red Square in Moscow, where the 80-year old corpse of Vladimir Lenin lies in a vacuum-sealed glass case. How morbidly connected do we have to be to any former leader, however great? Look at Cuba, which grapples with its future identity simply because Fidel Castro is fading in his old age.

One clue in all this is that a tenure or term should end with an election, not a coup d’etat. For that matter, tenures and terms (less than a decade) should be the order of the day for any healthy group – nobody should presume to rule the roost indefinitely. As Obama comes to office in 3 weeks, I’m a bit perturbed by people who have imbued him with spiritual or otherworldly qualities. He is a fallible person with a limited term of office – let’s please leave it at that.

Our American “song” is a song of democracy (albeit flawed), safe passages and comparatively easy transitions. Whether it’s AA, Apple or the United States we humans should be ever reminded to place principles before personalities. We don’t have to be anonymous like AA, but we do have to make a careful distinction between a man and his office. To do otherwise is to open the dark doorway to cults and idol-worship the likes of which we haven’t seen since the pharaohs of bygone eras.

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