My rule about legacies and copyrights also applies to leaders. If you want your ideas to have a chance of lasting and spreading, don’t wall them off behind copyrights and patents and NDAs.
Obviously not every idea is great enough or important enough to last, but when all ideas are walled, the good concepts won’t have a chance to be appreciated now or later.
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A leader who wants to rule with consent starts by serving the people, and then always explains his actions. This is a standard rule for good parents, good teachers, and good salesmen. If you need to give commands, or you expect people to follow your suggestions, you need to show humility and service, and you need to explain first before commanding.
Successful politicians in previous times used this rule. FDR demonstrated his service to ordinary people on the first day in office by closing down and cleaning up the banks. After that, he spent huge amounts of time and effort explaining what he wanted, via the Fireside Chats. Ordinary Americans saw that FDR was working for them, and they understood what he wanted from them. They complied willingly, and fought a hard and deadly war voluntarily.
After FDR the pattern faded, but wasn’t fully reversed until Bush Senior. He switched to a mode of mysterious executive orders popping out of nowhere, containing mysterious commands that weren’t related to any publicly visible needs. After Bush Senior, all presidents have continued in this mode. Even Congress isn’t allowed to read the laws or know the reason for the laws. Congress simply passes the laws without argument.
The switchover in politics was marked by Bush Senior. The switchover in radio was around the same time, and equally sharp.
Lately I’ve been listening to the 1940 series Can You Imagine That at bedtime. The announcer Lindsay MacHarrie was a careful and courteous explainer and empathizer.
Syndicated short programs had a standard form: Teaser intro, go to quiet music so the local station could insert ads, then return for the main program. At end, outro with more quiet music to allow more ads. MacHarrie always explained each step. After the intro, he said something like “Now your local announcer will speak to you for about a minute and a half.” At the end he said “Now I’ll return you to the good care of your local announcer.” He respected the listener and respected YOUR local announcer. (Also, local announcers may have felt obliged to show a bit more care after the compliment with an implied promise.)
What was the switchover point?
The switchover was named Rush. Rush never explained, never thanked, never gave credit. Every stage in the program happened ABRUPTLY and UNEXPECTEDLY. The monologue ended unpredictably, the first call jumped in without a moment’s pause. You never knew if the current paragraph was meant to be parody or serious, which made it easy to memoryhole a mistake by post-dating it as parody.
Rush made a STRONG POINT of insisting that he was doing the program all by himself with no assistants, which was a flat lie. When co-hosts took over during his vacations or illnesses, he never thanked them. They were privileged to be his replacement, and that was payment and thanks enough.
When he discussed the LOCAL announcers who had paved the way for his career, he dismissed them as tiny meaningless losers.
This was a PERSONAL INSULT. He was talking about MY UNCLE, who had spent 20 years building a format and an audience, until the station abruptly fired him and hired Rush, who stole the format.
Normal humans express some degree of respect for the people who were CRUSHED by the onward juggernaut of a new force. The respect may be fake, but it’s still the courteous thing to do. Standing on the shoulders of giants.
Psychopaths don’t need to respect meat objects, because all meat objects must be KILLED and will be KILLED.
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The Hollywood strike follows the Bush/Rush pattern. The union leaders and the studios may be negotiating but nothing emerges. They occasionally pop out mysterious sentences that are meaningless to the ordinary actors who hunger for information.
Polistra's Mill 