There are more than three kinds of officials, but consider these three broad types:
1. The Mediocre. In almost all cases, people are more than intelligent enough to complete the tasks before them – it’s usually ignorance or laziness that inhibits successful work. These are the so-called public servants who mostly seem to be serving their own need for the limelight. They’re light on ideas but big on being seen.
They’re disparaging of study and reflection, even if the standard required should be no more than a conventional, high school education and follow-up reading. Even that’s too hard for them, often, and they’re likely to be heard complaining that they shouldn’t have to do better.
(There’s an irony about the views of this first group. Among their number are some who are quick to blame falsely those of other races or ethnicities for laziness, yet it is the members of this group who are, in fact, truly lazy.)
2. The Flacking. These officials are credentialed, and want to make sure you know it on each and every occasion they’re introduced.
In their work, they may show little evidence of the formal education they tout, but that’s not their purpose: they misuse their credentials to lend credibility to their mediocre compatriots who are too indolent to do good work.
Find ten Mediocrities, and you’ll find one overly-credentialed Flack who’s role is to lend credibility to the shoddy work of the ten. That the Flack does almost nothing substantive, himself, doesn’t matter – his job is to lend a patina of erudition to otherwise bottom-shelf work.
3. The Talented. From every walk of life, from every race and ethnicity, one finds people who are truly talented. They’re thorough, inquisitive, and dogged by turns.
Their success depends much less on formal study than it does on a lifelong commitment to diligence and informal study. If some of these talented officials should also be formally schooled, they’re the ones who have stayed informed of the literature of their fields long after graduation, throughout their careers.
It’s only the third group of these three that truly advances a community; the other two groups hold it back.
