Living abroad and being out of touch with American TV, I’m way behind the 8 ball. But our family recently picked up watching Designated Survivor.
I see HOLISTIC all over the actions of President Kirkman. Pressing down on one thing to make another happen.
It’s pretty surprising to see, in an action story. I haven’t gone through and tried to hyper-analyze the rest of the series and seasons–we just started on season 2. But everyone is thrown amuck by this holistic president.
I think it makes holistic make sense for me to see it modeled on this show. He’s not necessarily “feminine” in his approach to problems, more like looking outside the box for ALTERNATE responses. In his role as US President, people are always suggesting the heavy-hand, linear decisions. But he’s reticent, looking for other ways to manipulate the situations he’s faced with.
For example,
- The three-off trade with Russia/Ukraine/US to negotiate a stand-down on a hijacking.
- The pressing of another country to release funding for a terrorist in order to get hostages released
- The bombing of bridges and roads in order to stop a terrorist, while technically keeping to his promise to not bomb the terrorist’s people
- Hiring a linear-thinker for his Chief of Staff, but keeping his holistic assistant as Special Advisor.
- Giving Chief of Staff time off/personal leave for indiscretion instead of firing him.
- Talking to public-enemy #1 about family to try to win him over instead of bombing him.
- Putting his opponents into positions on his cabinet,
- Empowering the press to hold him accountable to transparency
- (the list goes on…)
It’s a good study of how to do holistic. Would love to know if anyone else sees this or noticed this.