Blair: K.D.S.
By Peter Blair, Staff Columnist
Published on Monday, April 4, 2011
College President Jim Yong Kim is unpopular among many students these days. Many pieces have been published in The Dartmouth criticizing our president, from Verbums to opinion columns to Mirror articles. Nearly all the people I’ve talked to about Kim have expressed some kind of serious disappointment in him. He is the man everyone loves to hate. In short, much of the campus is suffering from a shared psychological state that I like to call Kim Disillusionment Syndrome (KDS).
KDS strikes students who are finally being disabused of the uncritical, starry-eyed illusions they used to possess about him. One finds the pain of such disillusionment everywhere. Students across all classes are wallowing in feelings of anger, betrayal and existential angst. We hung our hopes on Kim, but Kim disappointed and now we find ourselves in a ruined, shattered world stripped of all heroism and goodness. Superman has been unmasked, and we find ordinary, fallible Clark Kent starring us back in the face. Expressions that provide evidence for this syndrome are commonplace. Columnist Josh Kornberg wrote, “the president who showed us the possibilities of being human [who reminds us] how important it is to believe in heroes” has turned out to be nothing more than an unusually clever salesman (“Wail to the Chief”, March 28). What now? How can we move forward?
As much as I feel for those who have were beguiled by Kim’s “obsidian eyes” and “soothing voice,” my first reaction to all the despair going around is to laugh. There is something sadly humorous in watching people realize their idols are fallible human beings. It is doubly entertaining though also doubly tragic when people have so strongly invested their outlook on life in another person. So invested, in fact, that they can’t bear demonstrations of that person’s imperfections. KDS, because of its manifest absurdity, is first and foremost an occasion for humor (though the humor is slightly lessened by the fact that the language used about Kim sometimes sounds like it could be the opening to a bad erotic novel).
But it is also an occasion for serious reflection. Why is it that Kim’s perceived failure as a president causes one to doubt the existence of heroes and to lose sight of the possibilities of being human? Why is it that one’s hope stands or falls with one man? There is something seriously unhealthy about our intellectual culture when such a state of affairs obtains, and it is worth examining the cause of it.
KDS is rooted in, I believe, a misunderstanding of human nature. The reason why people are so affected by the failures of their heroes is that they entirely overestimate their abilities and underestimate their capacity for moral and professional incompetence. In other words, we expect too much from people because we don’t appreciate the depth and universality of human fallibility. Kornberg wrote in his column that Kim was supposed to be “the president who saves millions of lives through a superhuman unwillingness to settle for solipsism or cynicism.” We expected Kim to be superhuman. But like all of us, Kim is apt to make mistakes. The only difference is that his power amplifies the significance of his mistakes.
This column is therefore an exhortation to realism. One ought to be idealistic when it comes to causes and ideals, but never when it comes to people. Success, as a friend often reminds me, equals results minus expectations. As a visionary and transformative leader, Kim, like Obama, is a failure. As an administrator and college president, he is mediocre, perhaps even mildly successful. If we had expected less of Kim, as we reasonably should have, we might be unhappy with his mediocrity but we would not be suffering the destruction of our worldview.
In short, we can entertain realistic hopes for our leaders if we expect only that they leave their organization, nation or college moderately better that it was before their tenure. If we expect them to improve things in all respects, or even in a vast majority of respects, we will be guilty of moderate idealism. If we hope they will give us an example of heroism, we have abandoned all claims to realism.
“Superman has been unmasked, and we find ordinary, fallible Clark Kent starring us back in the face.”
Peter, this is arguably one of the wrongest sentences about Superman I’ve ever read. You chose the most famous superhero that doesn’t wear a mask! And Clark Kent isn’t fallible—he’s just as strong when he wears fake glasses and a tie. I think the Green Lantern might have been more appropriate. Also, you could’ve done something with green.
By Dennis M. Zeveloff on Apr 4 | 6:21 am
Your point is a fair, if self-evident, one. But I did a find-and-replace for “Kim” with “Obama” and the article read exactly the same, and had the same impact…not much. THough I don’t disagree with the thrust of your argument, the whole article is written in broad generalities that can be applied to any leader at the end of his honeymoon..
By Dan 07 on Apr 4 | 9:40 am
“If we had expected less of Kim, as we reasonably should have, we might be unhappy with his mediocrity but we would not be suffering the destruction of our worldview.”
What a sad state of affairs, to always have low expectations of people. Why should we settle for mediocrity in our leadership when we know that Kim is capable of doing great things! Always being complacent about mediocrity allows us to be satisfied with an unsatisfactory status quo. Change happens through optimism, not cynicism.
By Christian W. Brandt on Apr 4 | 11:35 am
How many more opinion pieces have to be published that beat around the bush before someone finally writes what everyone is thinking: President Kim, it’s time for you to resign.
By The Real Story on Apr 4 | 12:02 pm
Right. Throw Kim out. Buy out his contract and send him packing back to Boston where he likes it. Next remember who gave you this guy. The “Packed” Board of Trustees. You know, the ones who are now having unopposed elections for themselves. Does the Board accept responsibility for Kim’s failure as their failure? The alumni and students should pin Kim on them. He is their great new hope and he stinks. It is all about Kim just like it is all about Obama. That isn’t leadership, it is narcissism.
By Queequeg on Apr 4 | 2:03 pm
I agree with Mr. Zeveloff. This article would have been worlds better had the sentence read: “The power ring has been slid from Green Lantern’s finger, supplanting what was once a beacon of hope with Ryan Reynold’s buffoonish visage.”
By Jesse E. Choukas-Bradley on Apr 4 | 2:44 pm
Must reading for every student and alum at the College, including the Trustees. Tracy Kidder’s book “Mountains Beyond Mountains” the story of “Partners in Health,” founded by Paul Farmer and two others. Read Page 100, where Farmer lambastes our President Kim, reams him a new one, for canceling a trip that he volunteered for and promised Farmer that he would take for work, when a Rockefeller conference at Bellagio on Lake Como, Italy came up. President Kim doesn’t care for work…he likes play time at other people’s expense, both monetarily and through a dereliction of his own duties. If the Board of Trustees didn’t know about his record they are incompetent, if they did they are complicit. No one can read that page and support Kim for anything other than being fired from Partners In Health and fired from the Presidency of Dartmouth College after his pattern of playing and not working has been exposed yet again. The Board should fire itself and make way for new elections.
By Funky on Apr 4 | 4:56 pm
Jesse and Dennis are right, I think you were thinking of kryptonite but forgot to put it in there. Plus kryptonite is green, which is kinda funny!
By Ryan A. Nightingale on Apr 4 | 5:03 pm
I don’t think we should all be completely losing faith in Kim. He has potential, vision and I believe good motivations. Give him time to make mistakes and learn from them.
By hope on Apr 4 | 7:57 pm