Beware the “First”

Published on Jun 7, 2026, filed under politics, philosophy. (Share this post, e.g., on Mastodon or on Bluesky.)

“Someone first” rhetoric—whether it’s America/Israel first, men first, or corporate profits first—is aggressive and short-sighted, and we need to push back on it.

What makes “someone first” so aggressive is that it puts that someone on top or in front of everyone else.

What makes it so short-sighted—dumb even—is that those promoting it haven’t made the most basic of observations: They’re not alone on this planet, and therefore, those who are exploited will, in the end, undermine the happiness of the rest. It’s foolish, then, to build a worldview on making others lose (and one reason why wars are so dumb).

While we could simply reject the notion of anyone going first, I want to call out three things that I believe are related to this misguided notion of “someone first”:

1. The unholy -isms: Sexism, racism, ageism, speciesism are all more alive than we care to admit. In a world in which we haven’t learned to treat all beings respectfully and fairly no matter the gender, color of their skin, age, or species, it’s unfortunately a dark consequence that we would deem someone also to be “first.”

2. The side-effects of competition: Zero-sum competition supports and promotes the notion not only that someone did something better, but that they were better. In competitions, we practice people or groups being first, laying the foundation for people or groups being “better” in other areas as well.

3. The perverted idea of leadership: In a world full of leaders, we may have never been so leaderless. While -isms and competition point at causes, our ideas of leadership indicate another symptom—we confused leadership with “firstness” to the extent that leadership has been reduced to dominance, losing much of its meaning, value, and effectiveness. ^*

We cannot accept this, we must push back—beware the first.

^* Let me go further: That we rally behind mediocre if not outright bad leaders is a sign not only of how we misunderstand leadership, but also democracy.

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager at various companies, including Google; I’m an open-source developer and a contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG); and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also with respect to politics and philosophy. Here on meiert.com I talk about some of my experiences and perspectives. (Please share feedback—interpret charitably, keep it friendly, but do be critical.)