We have discussed roles and role-playing.
People who accept roles in societies must make sure they are qualified for those roles. They must study what are the qualifications, according to their society, for the role that they are playing.
How do you determine these qualifications?
First, you study the best players of those roles in your society. What makes them the best? Do you meet these qualifications? What are they? What are the specifics? What are you required to do and to know if you play that role in your society? Should you transform the qualifications? Should you introduce different qualifications? You must be the best of the best as your society interprets the best? You also must have your input into the best of the best? Are you truly qualified for that role?
Not just that you want the role. People want all kinds of roles. Many want to be president, but what are the qualifications for being president? Do you meet those qualifications? And, for a role, such as president, even if you meet the qualifications, you must be approved by the people of your society. That is also an aspect of the qualifications. Many people are qualified to be president of many civilizations, but are you available to win the approval of others? If not, it's best to try to find some career in presidential politics or the administration but you don't necessarily have to be president. You might become an advisor or consultant in presidential politics. You might become a presidential historian. You would have to seek a presidential political career that doesn't involve elections to office. You can also become an expert on the presidency, writing books on the subject. You might even become a friend of presidents, writing books on them. To become president yourself means the approval of the people, through elections. Some people are quite qualified to be president in theory, but not for an elected office.
You can also become a non-elected polical person, in various non-elected political office, and you can work on the staffs of political people. Many of these people also write speeches for presidents, and have a great influence in public policy just as (lowly) speech writers. It's good if these people are known, and given credit for the great speeches that they write, nevertheless, as with playwrights, they need the great president to deliver the speech. Nevertheless, with many of the great presidents it's excellent when they can also write their own speeches, and have literary abilities as with an Abraham Lincoln or a Thomas Jefferson. Certainly it would be good if they are co-authors and contribute lines to some of the great speeches. But no wonder actors now become presidents, and mayors and governors. This is the media age. Many of the non-charismatic (in the media's understanding of charisma, as some people are charismatic off-camera but not on-camera; there's a different type of charisma) people who used to become the presidents and mayors and governors now are relegated to lesser roles.
Many of the greats of previous generations, before the media age as we know it, we assume would be the greats of our generation, but many of these people would probably not even be known, as with the radio age or any new age. Mostly when these people are portrayed in the movies also, we generally get people to play the roles who are meaningful for our age and generation. Usually these are people who are attractive and charismatic for the screen. Sometimes the people they play are also this, sometimes they are not, sometimes they are attractive and charismatic in a different manner.
But as for roles and role-playing? Suppose you want to be a teacher in a little African village? Just because you're a teacher and have that role in European or Asian society, for example, and you're qualified to be a teacher, doesn't necessarily mean that you're qualified to be a teacher in that little African village. You might go to that little African village and find that the people reject you in the role of a teacher but accept you in the role of a student and scholar.
And vice versa. An African who gets qualified to teach in a little African village might not necessarily be qualified to teach in an Asian University. That African has to determine are they qualified to teach at that Asian University also. That Asian University also has to determine that. Maybe that Asian University says to that African we'll accept you as a student and scholar at our Asian University--you must learn from us--but we don't accept you as a teacher. In our society, they might say, you're not qualified. Or that African might be qualified only to teach their own African language or a course in African anthropology, as many Chinese in America are hired in Universities to teach the Chinese language, while others are considered equally qualified to teach any subject.
