Pretensions of world domination

I’m going to write once again about something I saw on a minivan around town. I’m not consciously trying to make a theme out of this. It just sort of happened.

What I saw was a bumper sticker saying “Get involved. The world is run by people who show up.” For a moment it seemed to me like a decent sentiment. It’s similar to Woody Allen saying “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” You’ve gotta participate if you’re gonna make it.

There’s a difference between the two, though, if you look closer. The Allen quote is humble and general—it seems to come from his own experience and observations. All he’s talking about is success. The word “success” means many different things to people, and it can be applied to pretty much any activity. No doubt Woody Allen has achieved his fair bit of success, seen other people achieve it, and seen plenty of others fail to achieve it.

Now read the bumper sticker slogan again. “The world is run . . .” it says. When I read this the other day, I had to do a double take to gather the context of this bold statement. The sticker was on the back of a tan minivan parked next to the YMCA in insignificant little Bellingham, WA. 

I had not realized that the people running the world were driving ten-year-old minivans and taking their kids to swim at the Y on Saturday mornings in rainy hamlets of the Pacific Northwest.

Nor do I think the people actually running the world feel much need to advertise their running of the world with clever slogans. They know they’re running the world, and other people know they’re running the world. They probably don’t care much if the guy stopped behind them at the light is or isn’t motivated to greatness by what he reads or doesn’t read on their bumper.

I wondered about the guy who owns that van. (We’ll just assume it’s a guy. It really makes no difference.) It’s certainly possible he’s achieved some kind of Northwest-style success. Maybe he’s the director of an organic farmers cooperative. Maybe he owns his own artisan coffee roasting business. Maybe he works from home as a marketer for sustainable energy initiatives. 

Any one of these is possible, and he may well have achieved his success by “getting involved” and “showing up.” But his ride and its location sure didn’t make me think he’s one of the people running the world. I didn’t get the impression he was even on his way up to running the world or that he’s even acquainted with any people who run the world. So where does he get the idea that he knows what traits world-runners possess, or that he can tell us how to emulate them?

I think it’s a natural human tendency to take the truths we find in our own little corners of life and extrapolate them into world-governing axioms. We’re all guilty of it to some degree. We want to believe that when we succeed it’s because we are following some universal principle of greatness. One guy gets ahead by knocking on doors, and suddenly the world is run by those who show up. Another guy climbs the ladder by keeping his mouth shut, and the world is run by the quiet ones. Yet another guy makes his bread by connecting the right groups of investors and entrepreneurs, and the world is run by the communicators. There’s no end to the grandiose claims we like to make about our knowledge of the world and how it works.

Just don’t put it on a damn sticker.