A 'leaderless' West

It is troubling that the West currently lacks the strong, visionary leaders it desperately needs. Despite our cultural and civilisational advancements, we do not have inherently better leaders than our ancient counterparts. Our recent political reality is a stark reminder that the more cultured we become, the fewer great leaders we seem to produce.

Leadership is a rare and vital trait that transcends the nature-culture dichotomy. It is not just a crucial element in the lives of humans but also of animals as a fundamental pillar of societal and natural progress. It shows a primordial instinct for safety and certainty and the advanced capabilities for social transformations, economic growth, and cultural progress. In essence, it is as natural as it is cultural, as primitive as it is contemporary, and as instinctual as it is rational.

Both humans and animals, primarily mammals, need leadership to maintain and expand group "identity," promote order, protect safety, and ensure generational growth and prosperity. Animal leaders lead because their instinctual need for collective survival naturally guides them as a life force and principle.

It is much more complicated in the human world.

Until recently, some great leaders in the West came from military backgrounds, including Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon, and Bismarck. What is common among them is not only their being military leaders in the first place with the extraordinary capacity to create a new political reality, but also in their facilitation for the social and moral values, traditions, and aspirations to be passed on to new generations with a renewed hope, an enhanced confidence, and an enlarged imaginary horizon into the future. In them, the essential relationship between people and their leader is manifested-the leader, whether military or civic, must ensure safety, prosperity, and intergenerational continuity while setting moral, political, and cultural standards for the people to inspire, feel proud of, follow up on, excel in, and immortalise.

In the animal world, leadership is hardly corruptible. Animal leaders sense themselves always as part of a group or pack and dedicate themselves intrinsically to the welfare of their existence. They act, think, and lead like a collective, never as a single animal, for they have no self or self-interest. Unlike animals, humans have a self and self-interest and are hence corruptible.

Leadership in the human world is as ambiguous as a double-edged sword, used for either excellence or mediocrity with compassion or violence. It is often intricate with desires for power grab, pleasure, and extension, with a tendency for total or partial dominance through intimidation, violence, war, and control. While there are also some forms of altruistic leadership, called servant leadership, leadership is mainly intertwined with power, influence, and dominance.

Despite the publication of thousands of books on leadership, we have seen fewer and fewer leader-like figures emerge with global influence, admiration, and exemplariness. In the political area, there is a noticeable absence of leaders who can showcase a transformative force, improve human conditions, aim for noble goals, mould cultural vibes, embody a grand vision of the West, and provide vital hope for the world. This absence is a grave concern in the current political landscape.

Let us look closely at the current presidential race in the US, which is being competed by two key candidates, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, and which will shape the political orientation of the world in the future. Here, we do not focus on what they are discussing but on what they are not discussing or discussing less. The latter reveals more about what they are politically repressing-akin to what Sigmund Freud would call psychological repression-unwanted contents that they try to hide and push into oblivion from public attention.

These contents include, but are not limited to, the astronomical debts of the US Federal government, 35 trillion dollars, to grow unlimitedly; millions of illegal migrants with a prospect of being given in some states voting rights to undermine the legality, legitimacy, and integrity of the current US elections; the prevention of nuclear wars; and the growing threats of the BRICS countries, a collective term for the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, driven by the common goal of de-dollarisation to topple the US-led world order and replace it with an authoritarian world order under China's leadership.

This repression on both sides may indicate they are not addressing vital and strategically crucial matters related to the existence, influence, and future of the US. It leads us to second-guess whether they represent the political will and interests of the people in a democratic system, defined as the rule of, for, and from the people, as Abraham Lincoln famously said.

Currently, millions of Americans are suffering from inflation, costs of living, homelessness, high crime rates, a mental health epidemic, and decaying social infrastructure. They are in dire situations more than ever; thus, they also need a more decisive, not divisive, leader. Alas, it seems the candidates are pursuing not what Americans need but what their donors want. If either of them, particularly Trump, who is viewed by many as a hope-perhaps the last hope for people in the US and worldwide-does not represent the vital interests of Americans and the US, the consequences will be too dire to bear.

Strong leadership is immediately shown when an animal pack is threatened. Under such circumstances, some animal leaders will unite them more than ever, guide them to act in unison with discipline and determination, and bring them out of the woods. It is how they survive.

Regrettably, when the West is in dire need of strong, visionary leaders, we find ourselves led by individuals who are characterless, compromise their values, and represent the interests of mega-corporations and international entities.

On the other hand, the opposite of the West, the world of BRICS, is run by "strong men"-take, for example, Xi Jinping, Modi, and Putin. The commonality among them is that they are all fervent nationalists, populists, and defenders of their culture, traditions and national interests. In particular, Xi and Putin have more in common, which makes them more united and determined against the US, whose next "leader" will likely be less serious to be taken and even less to be afraid of.

A leader is a mirror to the nation they lead. A great nation is the work of great leaders-certainly across generations. Historically, great leaders have taken their nation out of a crisis to make it great again, manifesting in Trump's slogan, "Make America Great Again." However, it is just a slogan that sounds solemn but must be realised genuinely.

In the West, now at the crossroads of historic choice, the critical problem lies not between right or left, and conservatives or progressives, but between the democratic rule of people and the establishment of perpetual tyranny achieved through abuse of democracy. The current US elections are key to resolving this tension, for good or worse.

There is a growing tendency in the West that politicians gradually cease to serve the people they represent. Then, we may wonder if there is any point in electing them to influential governmental positions. If we push this argument to its limit, we may even further wonder if there is any point in having elections to perpetuate our illusions that political leadership takes care of us as the people as the ultimate source and objective of this very power.

To imagine a leaderless West is frightening, but it is also sobering to reconsider our political destiny, re-enforcing that no political power is legitimate in a democracy without our collective political will and interests being taken seriously, consistently, and genuinely.