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Half a Markus Essay
I began this a couple of months ago and never got it finished/posted. It's not going to be finished in the near future, so I thought I'd go ahead and post what I have.
Markus Alexander, Or Government by Kucinich
Have you ever seen Dennis Kucinich give a speech? He speaks soberly and at great length about how Plan A will address Problem B within the parameters of Socioeconomic Reality C in such as a way as to forestall Problem D with minimal Problem E. Now and then, his supporters cheer, and he stumbles to halt with a perturbed look upon his face as if he cannot comprehend why these strange noises have interrupted his train of thought. After some moments of staring blankly, he resumes his discussion of Socioeconomic Reality C and its ramifications for Problem D should Plan A not be adopted. And he's usually right.
Have you ever seen Markus Alexander give a speech? He's rather more abstract, having less specific policy to speechify about, and he's younger and better looking, and he is more likely to get boos than cheers, owing to the composition of his audience. But beyond that, the resemblance is striking. You could fit this man's charisma in a thimble.
Theo, whose charisma would overflow a millionaire's swimming pool, hits the nail on the head when she says that Markus's problem is that he's trying to sell people on his ideas rather than himself. Luckily for him, he has her to throw the weight of her cult of personality behind his leadership.
Dennis Kucinich will never be President of the United States.
However, Markus does become leader of the Western Alliance (with a little help from his friends), and this fact is as good a piece of evidence as any that he lives in a post-apocalyptic proto-society. His ascendance is enabled by a massive power vacuum. If he had grown up in the America he was born to, he would never have been a political leader. Likely, he would have been a scientist or mathematician or engineer, following in the footsteps of his father. His skill sets tend that way: technical intelligence, systematic thinking, organizational skill, self-motivation. He lacks the true politician's flare, the rhetorical instinct, the joy in rallying people around him (see Sims). His fifteen-year tenure as Thunder Mountain's leader is half skill and half accident. At the time of the Big Death, he was the oldest left in the installation and, thus, just by age, more mature, educated, and authoritative than the other kids. His technical expertise and organizational skill kept the installation running. His native caution and conservatism protected Thunder Mountain from discovery in the early days of chaos when it was most vulnerable. And once he had established a capacity for keeping his people alive and safe, his leadership remained largely unchallenged due to the small, insular nature of the community he governed: they knew him, and they trusted him.
To be sure, he has an impressive set of leadership skills. Beyond his technical skills, he is a well-trained critical thinker (as a scientist's son should be). Despite landing in a position of near autocratic authority, his instinctive focus on ideas makes him persistently open to seeking others' opinions, other options. This tendency, combined with his heartfelt adherence to traditional American values of democracy and checks and balances (he a US Army brat too), inoculates him almost entirely against the loss of perspective most autocrats suffer.
Markus is well served in another respect by having been raised American. He is by nature a formal person, reserved, aloof, one might say naturally aristocratic: characteristics that carry strengths but are also weaknesses for a leader who needs to connect with the hearts of his followers. Happily, American culture counter-balances these traits: it is informal, casual, friendly, emphatically middle-class. Thus, his social acculturation makes him accessible in way his native personality, in other contexts, could easily refuse.
... This concludes this fragmentary essay I started a while ago and then dropped. Perhaps I will take it up again when I next rewatch Jeremiah
Markus Alexander, Or Government by Kucinich
Have you ever seen Dennis Kucinich give a speech? He speaks soberly and at great length about how Plan A will address Problem B within the parameters of Socioeconomic Reality C in such as a way as to forestall Problem D with minimal Problem E. Now and then, his supporters cheer, and he stumbles to halt with a perturbed look upon his face as if he cannot comprehend why these strange noises have interrupted his train of thought. After some moments of staring blankly, he resumes his discussion of Socioeconomic Reality C and its ramifications for Problem D should Plan A not be adopted. And he's usually right.
Have you ever seen Markus Alexander give a speech? He's rather more abstract, having less specific policy to speechify about, and he's younger and better looking, and he is more likely to get boos than cheers, owing to the composition of his audience. But beyond that, the resemblance is striking. You could fit this man's charisma in a thimble.
Theo, whose charisma would overflow a millionaire's swimming pool, hits the nail on the head when she says that Markus's problem is that he's trying to sell people on his ideas rather than himself. Luckily for him, he has her to throw the weight of her cult of personality behind his leadership.
Dennis Kucinich will never be President of the United States.
However, Markus does become leader of the Western Alliance (with a little help from his friends), and this fact is as good a piece of evidence as any that he lives in a post-apocalyptic proto-society. His ascendance is enabled by a massive power vacuum. If he had grown up in the America he was born to, he would never have been a political leader. Likely, he would have been a scientist or mathematician or engineer, following in the footsteps of his father. His skill sets tend that way: technical intelligence, systematic thinking, organizational skill, self-motivation. He lacks the true politician's flare, the rhetorical instinct, the joy in rallying people around him (see Sims). His fifteen-year tenure as Thunder Mountain's leader is half skill and half accident. At the time of the Big Death, he was the oldest left in the installation and, thus, just by age, more mature, educated, and authoritative than the other kids. His technical expertise and organizational skill kept the installation running. His native caution and conservatism protected Thunder Mountain from discovery in the early days of chaos when it was most vulnerable. And once he had established a capacity for keeping his people alive and safe, his leadership remained largely unchallenged due to the small, insular nature of the community he governed: they knew him, and they trusted him.
To be sure, he has an impressive set of leadership skills. Beyond his technical skills, he is a well-trained critical thinker (as a scientist's son should be). Despite landing in a position of near autocratic authority, his instinctive focus on ideas makes him persistently open to seeking others' opinions, other options. This tendency, combined with his heartfelt adherence to traditional American values of democracy and checks and balances (he a US Army brat too), inoculates him almost entirely against the loss of perspective most autocrats suffer.
Markus is well served in another respect by having been raised American. He is by nature a formal person, reserved, aloof, one might say naturally aristocratic: characteristics that carry strengths but are also weaknesses for a leader who needs to connect with the hearts of his followers. Happily, American culture counter-balances these traits: it is informal, casual, friendly, emphatically middle-class. Thus, his social acculturation makes him accessible in way his native personality, in other contexts, could easily refuse.
... This concludes this fragmentary essay I started a while ago and then dropped. Perhaps I will take it up again when I next rewatch Jeremiah
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Besides being food for thought, I also just completely enjoy this essay as a character sketch.
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