Is it right for a political figure to get paid HUGELY to make a speech in which she says things privately that might cause a furor publicly? And what does Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky have to say about this?
Let’s play a little Madden Mischief.
First, except for the jealousy it arouses, what’s wrong with being paid a reportedly $1.8 million for a speech? I’d do it in a Hillary heartbeat.
Also, isn’t it sometimes better to deliver a bit of perspective privately to the group most affected by legislation?
One of the Russian-hacked private speeches released from WikiLeaks show Hillary Clinton’s predicting Washington lawmakers would pass the Dodd-Frank banking reform law merely for “political reasons.” She also allegedly dared to suggest the industry might be better prepared to regulate itself.
“With political people … there was a lot of complaining about Dodd-Frank, but there was also a need to do something for political reasons,” Clinton said at a 2013 Goldman Sachs investment symposium, according to the hacked email.
“If you were an elected member of Congress and people in your constituency were losing jobs and shutting businesses and everybody in the press is saying it’s all the fault of Wall Street, you can’t sit idly by and do nothing,” Clinton also said in the speech.
Okay, here’s a political insider speaking frankly about Dodd-Frank and providing perspective to the group most affected by it?
Haven’t you ever explained privately why you really had to do what you once did?
So is it Kosher for a political candidate to speak in confidence for reasons the public might not be ready to embrace some frank and candid discussion?
Was it deceitful or hypocritical for Senator Clinton to tell Wall Street bankers they might be better able to reform their own often overreaching industry?
Some social development theorists argue that the private to public channel plays a central role in the process of how we derive meaning and make sense. Isn’t this how we all develop cognitively starting from childhood?
The work of Vygotsky stresses the fundamental role of early social interaction in the development of cognition. His thesis was social learning tends to precede development.
If that’s so, perhaps on a macro level we could develop more enlightened public policy to regulate an industry so fundamentally important to our economy.