Aging Capriciously

Where do the four groups that are in my title derive their power from?  Perhaps you will answer fame or fortune.  Superficially you might be correct, but you are missing the mark.  I want you to think about my question more and try to answer it again before we go any further.  Is it from their looks, their families, their talents, their abilities to persuade?  Again, if you gave any of the former as an answer you are still missing the mark.  All these answers are dead wrong.  

Let me put it another way.  Where does the purchasing power of a dollar bill come from?   Is it the gold bullion in Fort Knox, Kentucky?   Is it the value of the paper that a dollar is now printed on?  Does it come from the political party in office?  Is it the banks that are protected by the Federal Reserve?  Is it the stock market or the Consumer Price Index?  If you picked any of these, you are wrong again.

I will give you a clue.  Both the value of the dollar and the power of the four groups noted come from the same place.  The place is not fungible.  It is intangible.  It does not exist. 

“In an article in the New York Times on January 15, 2004, Berkeley professor of economics Hal Varian raises a fundamental question: why are the dollar bills in people’s pockets worth anything?  According to Varian, there are two possible explanations for this: the dollar bills carry value because the government in power says so or because people are willing to accept it as payment.  He concludes that the value of a dollar comes not so much from government mandate as from social convention.” — 1/20/2004, Frank Shostak

Jesus was offered fame, fortune, immortality, and power.  He declined them all with the words, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.” — Matthew 4:1-11.  Tell me the “God” that you worship, and I will tell you the power that celebrities, media influencers, nobility and politicians have over you.  You see there is no intrinsic power in either a dollar or any of these groups.  They gain their power from perceptions.  Your perceptions. 

I live in the USA.  Years ago, I worked in an office which had many cubicles.  I occasionally had business with various occupants of these cubicles.  I was very surprised one day to find a shrine in one cubicle to the late Princess Diana.  It looked rather like an altar and even had a candle burning.  I asked Teresa the occupant about the shrine and if Diana had any genetic or physical relationship to her family.  The answer was no.  She simply stated that she loved Diana very much and was devastated by her death.  No connection except an admiration which to me bordered on the absurd. 

Of course, millions of people the world over are enamored with celebrities, movie stars, professional athletes, media influencers and politicians.  The relationship that exists between the admirer and the admired is often very powerful.  It is not tangible but emotional.  It defies monetary gain, practical reality, or any tangible exchanges.  People in every nation have idols they worship.  They ascribe great powers to these idols.  Too often, the only power these idols have lies in the perceptions and illusions that they have created.  They are magicians and the public is their gullible audience.

Now I have no problem with admiring someone who has true ability or substance.  Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jesus of Nazareth, Mahatma Gandhi, Simon Bolivar, Mother Teresa, Albert Einstein, Dostoevsky and a thousand others I could name come to my mind.  People who gave back to the world something that helped humankind be better than it was.  People who created things and ideas rather than images and illusions.  When it comes to people like the Kardashians, who thrive on publicity and image, I could care less about them.

We now live in the “Age of Madison Avenue” where it seems image, perception and illusions rule the media.  An age of political theater, media click baits, twitter sound bites, disinformation, misinformation, and strategic lying, where any publicity regardless of how atrocious or egregious can be seen as morally justifiable.  Trump, Boebert, Green and Santos are simply outcomes of a national and even global fascination with image and perception. 

Strange as it now seems to me, way back in 1986 when I joined the Process Management Consulting firm, I adopted the mantra that “The customer’s perception is our reality.”  It was often said in business that “The customer is king.”  Often said, but seldom practiced.  In business, money and profits are king.  The customer is simply a conduit for the money to travel between the mint and the corporation. 

The customer must be convinced that there is some good reason to give up his/her hard-earned cash.  The way marketers do this is by working on the customers perceptions.  It does not matter whether the customer’s perceptions are accurate.  It only matters what the customer perceives to be true.  Convince the customer that the product or service that they are buying has the features, advantages, and benefits they are looking for and you have made the sale.   Lifetime customer be damned.  Take the money and run. 

Celebrities, media influencers, politicians and nobility have instructed marketing professionals on the power of perception.  Reality does not matter.  It is what the public believes.  Nobility were masters at this skill long before Madison Avenue existed.  Pontius Pilate washed his hands in public so that he would not be blamed for the death of Jesus.  This even though it was his soldiers who scourged and crucified Jesus.  I give you the following excerpt from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar by Marc Antony.  It provides another example of the power of perception.

Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:

But Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honorable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

The mob that had gathered to hear Brutus explain why Caesar was murdered switched their allegiance from Brutus to Marc Antony after hearing this speech (At least in Shakespeare’s Play.)  The power of persuasion worked to change the perception that the mob had of Caesar.  Politicians and marketers use the same techniques today to influence people to do their bidding.  Although sometimes the persuasion and perceptions are almost invisible.  Let me give you another example of how influences can be very surreptitious.

Years ago, I read the famous autobiography of Ulysses S. Grant.  Said by non-other than Mark Twain to be the best autobiography he had ever read.  Grant describes how as a first lieutenant fighting for the North in the Civil War, he was surprised by the support that the average person in the South gave to the war.  How hard they fought for a way of life that only a very privileged few benefited from.  Grant noted that many of the Southern soldiers idealized the Plantation system even when it was clear that often the Southern White sharecroppers were worse off than some slaves.  This mindset seems to epitomize many of the poor uneducated rural Americans today.  They idealize a billionaire crook and draft dodger who lives a life of privilege and view him as some sort of savior.

I was born in Alabama and have made many trips to the deep South.  Every other summer my family would go down to visit my grandparents in Ensley, Alabama.  Sometimes we would travel by train and sometimes by car.  I had relatives in Tennessee and Georgia who we would also visit.  After high school, I was sent for USAF basic training to Texas and then spent a year in Mississippi for Tech School Training.  I worked as a management consultant in Texas and Kentucky for several years.  Karen and I have attended many music sessions in Arkansas and Kentucky. 

Whenever I have been in the South, I noticed that every home, large or small it did not matter had a similar feature.  They always have pillars in the front of the house.  I thought this odd until I realized what it symbolized.  Every Southern home is a miniature plantation.  The very concept of the old Plantation system is embedded in the architecture of the South itself.  Every Southerner (Black or White) comes home to their own plantation each day.  No matter how humble, they are all plantation owners.  There is a quote often heard that the “South will rise again.”  It does not have to because in the minds of many it never fell.  The image became the reality.  Is it any wonder that the South still clings to a way of life that died over 150 years ago?  The perception is the reality.

It is easy to blame others for our own problems.  Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see.”  Before we can be the change, we must see our perceptions for what they are.  If we accept image over reality, we can never make the change.  Jesus said, “They have eyes, but they refuse to see. If their minds were not closed, they might see with their eyes; they might hear with their ears; they might understand with their minds.” — Matthew 13:14-38. 

Seeing is not believing, believing is seeing.  As an educator, I once thought that teaching “Critical Thinking Skills” was the most important thing I could do for my students.  Now I realize that it is a secondary skill.  The primary skill we must teach everyone is to “question everything.”  Ask questions and more questions.  Do not accept what anyone, scientist, politician, expert, or doctor tells you.  Ask them why.  Ask them how.  Ask them what for.  Ask them for evidence.  Then ask them more questions.  Question what you believe.  Question what you see. 

“No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.”  —  Ansel Adams