An article in the latest Newsweek highlights research from Tufts University mood disorder expert Nassir Ghaemi, who suggests that we might want a commander-in-chief during trying times who’s not quite all there.
He argues that what sets apart the world’s great leaders isn’t some splendidly healthy mind but an exceptionally broken one, coupled with the good luck to lead when extremity is needed. “Our greatest crisis leaders toil in sadness when society is happy,” writes Ghaemi. “Yet when calamity occurs, if they are in a position to act, they can lift up the rest of us.”
If so, then what we need for these calamitous times is a calamitous mind, a madman in chief, someone whose abnormal brain can solve our abnormal problems. Perhaps the nicotine-free, no-drama Obama won’t do after all (although, by phone, Ghaemi acknowledges “a little more abnormality there than is advertised”). The good doctor isn’t saying that all mental illness is a blessing. Only that the common diseases of the mind—mania, depression, and related quirks—shouldn’t disqualify one from the upper echelons of public life, and for a simple reason: they are remarkably consistent predictors of brilliant success. …
… Depression in all its forms (which Ghaemi finds in Abraham Lincoln and the mildly bipolar Churchill) brings suffering, which makes one more clear-eyed, fit to recognize the world’s problems, and able to face them down like the noonday demon. Mania in all its forms (which Ghaemi detects in FDR and JFK) brings resilience, which helps one learn from failure, often with enough creativity to make a new start. Most originally, Ghaemi coins “the inverse law of sanity”: the perils of well-being. It’s why the poor, sane Neville Chamberlain chummed around with Nazi leaders while Churchill’s “black dog” foresaw a fight.
While an article about the desirability of presidential candidates with mental disturbances was a bit surprising, what truly shocked this reader was the total absence in that article of the following words: Ron Paul.
