David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

My need to make others perfect reflects my fear I’m not in control

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It was about 12 years ago and I was getting to know a woman who I would soon start dating. I don’t tell you this story with pride, but with shame. It really embarrasses me.

This woman had a brilliant mind. She was talented enough to do anything she wanted. Her competence, talent and intelligence were stunning. She could have done something really impressive if she had wanted, but what she really wanted was to be a teacher. She had received her degree and was about to start teaching.

That seemed like a waste to me. I thought she could do something so much more “impressive.” I don’t remember what I said, but I was trying to nudge her into thinking about something bigger. I was probably a bit condescending about it. You see, if she was going to be in my life, I wanted her to do something more impressive. I wanted to make her into what I thought she ought to be. I wasn’t honest enough with myself about it at the time to know this, but I made her career choice all about me.

I’m not a control freak, but I’m happier if you do things “the right way.” My way.

One of my core problems is my compulsion to reform everything around me, including other people. It’s not that I don’t also want to fix myself. I do. I want to fix the entire world around me — and that includes other people. This is really a problem of me needing control.

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Public discourse is distorted by constant outrage over anecdotes

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If you want a nation to follow you, don’t convince them of your principles or policies. Just tell the public carefully chosen stories. Sell images.

Adolph Hitler did this well. His marketing consultants flooded Germany with pictures of a smiling Hitler and happy children. (In the picture above, Hitler is with a young Jewish girl named Rosa.) People saw these images of a benevolent leader with adoring children — and they found it easier to believe he was a good man they should follow.

Joseph Stalin did the same thing in the Soviet Union. Chinese communist dictator Mao Zedong did it, too. How could these men be cold-blooded murderers if they loved children and children loved them?

Unfortunately, the rest of us have learned the same techniques in this age of video storytelling. Our politicians sell themselves this way. Companies sell products this way. In the era of social media, we have adopted the same techniques to convince others that we’re right about whatever we believe.

But it’s something I don’t want to do anymore.

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What if ‘the Good Old Days’ were never as good as you remember?

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When I was young, my father used to tell me stories about growing up in Birmingham. He rode streetcars around town by himself at a young age. (That was typical for kids then.) And he would tell me stories about his early jobs working as an usher for movie theaters downtown.

The best theaters in town were on Third Avenue North. Today, the Alabama Theatre and the Lyric Theatre — seen in this 1955 photo — are wonderfully restored and regularly used for concerts and movies. I’m pretty sure my father worked at both of them in the late 1940s.

He never told me that the years of his youth in Birmingham were “the good old days,” but he was clearly nostalgic for them. He enjoyed his experience of growing up in a bustling and active city, living around a vibrant downtown.

I hear a lot of people longing for the days of their past in similar ways, but many of them take it much further. They openly long for “the good old days.” They believe that the days gone by were great. They believe the America of their memory was great.

This nostalgia — combined with a fear of constant rapid change — makes some of them eager to to return to the past they imagine. To these people, “Make America Great Again” is an emotional call to a past which they imagine was idyllic.

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