Paralysis of leadership is due in part to the unseen grip of the special interests.
John W. GardnerRead
It is hard to feel individually responsible with respect to the invisible processes of a huge and distant government.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the difficulty individuals face in feeling accountable for the actions of a large, distant government.
John W. Gardner emphasizes the challenge of individual responsibility in the context of a vast governmental system that operates away from the direct oversight and influence of its citizens. This feeling of detachment can lead to apathy and disengagement, as people struggle to see their roles in influencing policies and outcomes that seem far removed from their personal lives.
Themes
ResponsibilityGovernmentIndividualsApathyAccountability
In practice
Example use cases
During a debate on the role of citizens in democracy.
More from John W. Gardner
All quotes βMore and more Americans feel threatened by runaway technology, by large-scale organization, by overcrowding. More and more Americans are appalled by the ravages of industrial progress, by the defacement of nature, by man-made ugliness. If our society continues at its present rate to become less livable as it becomes more affluent, we promise all to end up in sumptuous misery.
John W. GardnerRead
Storybook happiness involves every form of pleasant thumb-twiddling; true happiness involves the full use of one's powers and talents.
John W. GardnerRead
Leaders come in many forms, with many styles and diverse qualities. There are quiet leaders and leaders one can hear in the next county. Some find strength in eloquence, some in judgment, some in courage.
John W. GardnerRead
We pay a heavy price for our fear of failure. It is a powerful obstacle to growth. It assures the progressive narrowing of the personality and prevents exploration and experimentation. There is no learning without some difficulty and fumbling. If you want to keep on learning, you must keep on risking failure-all your life.
John W. GardnerRead
I think that all human systems require continuous renewal. They rigidify. They get stuff in the joints. They forget what they cared about. The forces against it are nostalgia and the enormous appeal of having things the way they always have been, appeals to a supposedly happy past. But we've got to move on.
John W. GardnerRead
Similar quotes
I have never regarded politics as the arena of morals. It is the arena of interest.
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People constantly speak of 'the government' doing this or that, as they might speak of God doing it. But the government is really nothing but a group of men, and usually they are very inferior men. They may have some better man working for them, but they themselves are seldom worthy of any respect.
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I am not political. It is not my job. But I would be happy if politicians could read my work and draw some conclusions from it.
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The Convention probably foresaw what it has been a principal aim of these papers to inculcate that the danger which most threatens our political welfare is, that the state governments will finally sap the foundations of the Union.
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The new social question is: democracy or the rule of the financial markets. We are currently witnessing the end of an era. The neoliberal ideology has failed worldwide. The U.S. movement Occupy Wall Street is a good example of this.
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