Ice breakers: those obligatory dinner party questions that
are an easy way to make large groups seem more personal. Questions like “What
is the most interesting job you have worked?” or “What would you do with a million
dollars?” We think our lives are
ordinary, relative to others in the room. These games are designed to get us
interacting and talking with each other. Occasionally they go awry and tell us
something we never wanted to know.
The Icebreaker I used was ‘deserted island’ where everyone
says which book they would bring if they had to spend 10 years alone on an
island. The class was a group of Mongolian students learning English at a
Chinese International school--long story don’t ask. I was teaching English for
the whole school and that day just happened to be my day with the Mongolian
kids. One by one they walked to the front of the room, repeated the phrase “my
name is ____, I am _____ years old, I would read ____”. It was a modified Ice
breaker so that they could use as many English words as possible.
Not sure what type of
answers I expected, probably lots of Harry Potter reading materiel. I nearly choked after the first student
expressed admiration for Hitler by choosing to bring a copy of Mein Kampf
on her extended stay. Ditto for the second and third and after a dozen or so
kids the verdict was in on Mein Kampf.
Nearly everyone wanted a copy. They
didn’t know the German title for Hitler’s book but they managed in their
halting English to mutter “gitler buk”. I imagined men with hidden cameras were
going to jump out of the closets and force a relieved laugh out of me so I
could join in the absurdity. The kids talked about Hitler like he was Abe
Lincoln or Winston Churchill, famous for being great. Adolf Hitler was a great
German leader the way that BMW is a great German car.
It was an illuminating this is the ‘real world’ type moments.
I realized people have different expectations of leadership and the qualities
that constitute greatness. In much of the non-democratic world strength equals
greatness while weakness equals failure. Winston Churchill was a great leader
because he saved Britain and fought back against an unrelenting assault from Luftwaffe bombing campaigns designed to decimate
her Majesty’s industrial advantage. Churchill’s moral courage against an evil
ideology is what makes him great.
George Washington is also a model of resolute character in
the face of a decimated army and swift moving British troops. Having lost men
to starvation and desertion, the continental army managed to fight on with
almost no support from Congress. As the first president of the newly formed
United States he could have become emperor but stepped aside giving power back
to the citizens.
Hitler though?
Take away morality and we are left with superficial
qualities describing famous men (strength, power, decisiveness, popularity).
Churchill and Washington were moral men and their leadership qualities are
buttressed by the justness of their causes. Admiring Hitler or Mussolini or Genghis
Khan inverts the graph by making strength and power the goal instead of the
effect. This Machiavellian framework is more present in the liberal democratic
world than even I thought back in my English teaching days.
How about this for an Icebreaker: “How far in the Presidential
election cycle could a billionaire con-man known for reality TV antics get?
The success of Donald Trump is proof that there is a human
tendency to see leaders as powerful agents ‘winning’ battles and crushing
opponents. I don’t think Trump is Hitler or Mussolini but he does have ‘strong-man’
qualities suggesting lack of a moral center and an indifference to the rule of
law. He may lose the primary to Ted Cruz and be just a bad memory. But Trump
has shown a quality that many of us didn’t realize existed among Americans--a
willingness to follow a strongman.
Use Icebreakers at your own risk. You might get more than
you bargained for.
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