On the subject of mentors
Much has been made of Sen. Barrack Obama's association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. (And I'm sure much more will be made of it by McCain's people once we Democrats finally stop coddling Hillary so Obama can start running a general election campaign.) And this morning, reading this article on Slate, I came across more criticism of Obama's mentors:
In April 2004, Barack Obama told a reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times that he had three spiritual mentors or counselors: Jeremiah Wright, James Meeks, and Father Michael Pfleger — for a change of pace, a white Catholic preacher who has a close personal feeling for the man he calls (as does Obama) Minister Farrakhan. This crossover stuff is not as "inclusive" as it might be made to seem: Meeks' main political connections in the white community are with the hysterically anti-homosexual wing of the Christian right. If Obama were to be read a list of the positions that his clerical supporters take on everything from Judaism to sodomy, he would be in the smooth and silky business of "distancing" from now until November.
Now I don't admit to knowing a whole lot about Pfleger, although I'm well acquainted with the theological writings of the other two. (And everyone knows who Farrakhan is.) Is acknowledging the spiritual influence of these men a smart political move? In the traditional sense, probably not; but then again, Obama is giving national politics its first taste of transformative leadership, so who knows. But that's for the pundits to wrangle over.
What bugs me is this widespread (deliberate?) misunderstanding of the mentor/mentee relationship. This is what I know: a mentor doesn't just fill your head with their own views, which you're expected to memorize and espouse passively. (That's called a "high school teacher.") True, a mentor is influential, and most people do share common views with their mentors. But a mentor's role has less to do with teaching the subject at hand, and more to do with teaching the person being mentored how to think for themselves about that subject. A mentor is someone who has weathered the same struggles, be they academic/intellctual, spiritual, whatever, and is there to offer guidance and any wisdom they may have picked up along the way. But it's not an entirely senior/junior power dynamic. While the mentor generally remains further along the path, if anything just because of chronological age, the person being mentored is always respected and their thoughts are always given full consideration (at least by a good mentor). In this way, the relationship resembles that of colleagues, perhaps that between a partner and associate in a law firm, or a doctor and her residents. A true mentor supports their student when he takes positions contrary to the mentor's own, as long as those positions are well-reasoned and can be articulated clearly; indeed, good mentors openly solicit their students' input on their own work and sometimes, as a result of the dialogue that arises, find their views shifting as well. It's not a one-way relationship.
So it's not hard for me to understand that Obama has mentors who hold views on certain topics that are different from his own. Indeed, if they're good mentors, they encourage debate and dialogue on those topics, thus allowing Obama to strengthen and better articulate his own positions. The degree to which the media thinks we, the voting public, will swallow this guilt by intellectual association crap confounds me, particularly since it's in reference to a candidate who is unquestionably brilliant and who has shown himself willing to take politically unpopular decisions when he believes they are right. Maybe it's just another kitchen-sink tactic.
Or maybe the country needs more mentors.