Dear Editor,

We are the governing body. Leaders inspire people to act. Their faith in the leader helps them to do great things, and acting in conjunction with their peers who also have the same faith, people can do what had seemed impossible. But the leaders themselves do nothing more than the average person who supports them. The problem with having a reliance on leaders, and with having a governing body composed of these very leaders whom we expect to be superhuman, is that we are all human. Our leaders fail, just as we do from time to time. When they fail, their followers, whose hopes and dreams were articulated by the leader, collapse with them. Our reliance on leaders and our lack of faith in ourselves create a governing body that is so confident in its authority to lead that the voice of the people is never given consideration. And when this happens over and over, people are left wondering why they need this governing body anyway and hoping desperately for another leader to save them from it.

Joshua Estabrook

Senior studying philosophy