Editor’s Note

My mom raised me to have a healthy sense of skepticism and to question authority. I have her to thank, in fact, for my father’s all too accurate prediction that my mouth would get me in trouble one day.

By the time I was in high school, my skeptical nature was so fully developed that I was questioning school rules that I thought were unjust and even openly mocking assignments and school projects. I should have taken my father’s warning more to heart, but my drive to question authority had developed much faster than my ability to shut up.

My first serious run-in with authority was brought on by my involvement in the world of politics. It was a presidential election year, and officials at my school thought that it would be a good civics lesson for the kids to hold their own campaigns for the two national candidates.

It’s something that’s done in schools all across the US every time there’s an election, but for some reason, I had a problem with it. It struck me as pointless and a silly waste of time. I mean, who cared what a bunch of high school kids thought about a national election? Our votes didn’t count for anything.

I enlisted a group of friends to start a write-in campaign for a famous comic-strip duo — a penguin and a cat. We made posters, wrote a platform and planned campaign strategy. We were a force to be reckoned with. It was too good to last.

It wasn’t long before the school’s PA system was crackling with a barely intelligible message, summoning me to the principal’s office. Having never been in serious trouble, the cold-sweat, wobbly kneed walk down the hallway was the longest I’d ever had.

What I faced in that office taught me a valuable lesson about the real nature of politics. Apparently, somebody had spilled the beans about our planned guerilla campaign even before we’d put up one poster.

As scared as I was that I’d be transported off to the gulag of detention, the principal was very nice. He asked that I not go ahead with my campaign — the teachers were worried that we might actually win. We spoke for quite a while about big issues like the need for social order, freedom of speech and having a sense of humour — or at least irony.

In the true spirit of politics, we eventually reached a compromise that allowed my team our write-in candidate in exchange for us running a much quieter campaign. We ended up coming in a distant third.

We learn some of the greatest lessons in life by accident. This was certainly true of my high school political career. Not only did I learn something important about the side of politics that we as citizens and voters all see, it was also my first exposure to the back-room deals where political fortunes are truly made or lost.

Maybe most importantly, it taught me that both of my parents could be right at the same time — something I’d doubted up till then. It is important to question authority. But questioning anything involves opening your mouth, which really can get you in trouble.

Sean Vale
Editor
seanv@bangkokpost.co.th