Four reasons leaders take us down the path of destruction

Why do people do stupid things? Everybody knows that what is happening in Kenya today is embarrassing and bad for the country — images of police trampling on protesters, weekly violence in the streets, muggings, destruction of property and of the country’s image.

So why do our leaders do it? Why does one lead his flock of rioters into the streets and the other his herd of baton-wielding police?

I stumbled upon the answer purely by chance. One of the downsides of journalism is that it is impoverishing, not just materially (as compared with, say, investment banking), but also intellectually.

As a young reporter, I did not see a boundary between scholarship and journalism.

I could sit to read a book, a report, or a statistical sheet just to background a story. Today, life consists in trawling through the shallow garbage that comes from speech writers and amateur propagandists.

The magic of social media is that not only does it expose you to the attentions of mad folk with an unyielding fixation with fictitious sexual escapades, but it also helps one build a network of normal, knowledgeable, professional, decent people from whom one can occasionally learn.

One such social media correspondent shared a marvellous treatise on Bertrand Russell’s 1950 Nobel acceptance speech. Written to coincide with Russell’s May 18 birthday, it is titled "The Four Desires Driving All Human Behaviour: Bertrand Russell’s Magnificent Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech", and readers can easily find it on brainpickings.org.

I do not know whether I was the only one, but as a student of philosophy, I found Russell difficult.

But reading that article made me realise that the loss was all mine, that there was wisdom in that savant.

If Abraham Maslow were paid a shilling every time his “hierarchy of needs” is quoted in a marketing PowerPoint, he would, by now, own the world.

THE 'I FACTOR'

His is the more popular framework for explaining human motivation. But Russell’s musings, given in the context of a speech, are more spontaneous and have fewer finger marks from grubby marketing presentations.

“All human activity is prompted by desire,” he argues. Even those who act out of moral principle or duty do not do so by resisting desire, but are driven by the desire to be dutiful or moral.

The four desires discussed in that article, in ascending order, are acquisitiveness, rivalry, vanity, and the love of power.

You can begin to see why I am excited about this as a framework to explain the madness of our politics.

I have always said that Kenyan politics and corruption are two sides of the same coin. Many folks are engaged in the theft of public resources because they think that without wealth, Kenyans will not sell you power.

It is also true that the hunger for possessions and title drives the actions of us all. In our politics, it finds a sharp definition.

(“However much you may acquire, you will always wish to acquire more; satiety is a dream which will always elude you,” says Russell.)

I believe that a Kenyan politician will wake up in the morning, put in a whole day’s worth of intrigue and underground work, go to bed at midnight tired and spent for no purpose other than to make his opponent look bad.

The rivalry in Kenyan politics, tinged as it is with (largely fictitious) notions of tribal supremacy and inferiority, is akin to enmity; animal, feral, untamed, irrational.

The most successful politicians appear to be those who are less able to tame this scorched-earth, take-no-prisoners approach to rivalry.

Then there is what Russell calls the “look at me” factor, the thirst for fame, the wish to be the centre of attention and, by extension, the propensity to nurse one’s rights and dignities to a very long extent.

Kenyan politics is in many cases not about the people or issues, it is about “me”.

And that is why politicians do not care whether the country burns or not, so long as they get what they want. Everything, after all, is about them.

INFINITE DESIRES
And, finally, is power, the love of which has reached fantastic proportions in Africa.

Men of power are addicted to being able to influence events and for the course of human events to flow around them.

Those who have tasted power will always want it and those who have some will want more.

And the more you have, the more you want. (“Love of power is greatly increased by the experience of power, and this applies to petty power as well as to that of potentates,” argues Russell).

Finally, Russell is of the view that human desires will keep us restless even in Paradise: they will never be sated.

“Man differs from other animals in one very important respect, and that is that he has some desires which are, so to speak, infinite, which can never be fully gratified, and which would keep him restless even in Paradise.

"The boa constrictor, when he has had an adequate meal, goes to sleep, and does not wake until he needs another meal. Human beings, for the most part, are not like this.”

We need a fifth desire: the desire to go to hell and leave us alone.

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