Archive → December, 2008
Power concedes nothing without a demand
Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will.
- Frederick Douglass
The real secret of positive thinking
While at a house party a few months back, a girl cornered me with a nice bottle of wine, and started telling me about ‘The Secret’ – a bestselling book and film . I sat and listened, sipping my wine, as the well-educated City financier explained the principles of universal attraction, without any sense of irony .
It was a treat. A true dissertation on the worst kind of magical thinking . Essentially, this chick (and many of her friends) believe that they are telekinetic, and can receive whatever they want just by hoping for it. Needless to say, i re-filled my glass and excused myself. I’d heard about voodoo before.
Is human nature disgusting?
@mparks says 48 Laws of Power = YUCK
Can’t say that i haven’t heard that reaction before. People tend to assume that any interest in human nature, strategy or power, is nefarious in some way. But these same people complain about the way that politicians manipulate and the media ‘controls’ us. They identify the symptoms, but are unwilling to understand the problem.
Some people like watching the magic trick. So do i. But i also like to understand how the trick was done. Not necessarily because i want to perform the trick, but because i’m curious.
Anyhow, so long as the Godfather is still voted the No.1 film of all-time, i don’t believe that people aren’t interested in the concepts of strategy and power. They are. They just don’t want to delve too deeply into the mind of a Don. Or a Pope. Or a President-Elect. It could shatter some of their dearly held illusions.
One of the saddest lessons of history
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. The bamboozle has captured us. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.
- Carl Sagan
What is the brand gap?
This is interesting stuff. Nowadays, around every corner is proof that the ongoing shift in branding, is the key to success in a web2.0 world. Personal branding is the new name of the game.
Barack Obama: Between a rock and a hard place
Here’s an excerpt from Obama’s first book – Dreams From My Father. I wonder whether his opinion has changed in any way, and whether people find the opinion offensive, accurate, or both?
I had begun to see a new map of the world, one that was frightening in its simplicity, suffocating in its implications. We were always playing on the white man’s court, Ray had told me, by the white man’s rules. Whatever he decided to do, it was his decision to make, not yours, and because of that fundamental power he held over you, because it preceded and would outlast his individual motives and inclinations, any distinction between good and bad whites held negligible meaning.
In fact, you couldn’t even be sure that everything you had assumed to be an expression of your black, unfettered self – the humour, the song, the behind-the-back pass – had been freely chosen by you. At best, these things were a refuge; at worst, a trap.
Following this maddening logic, the only thing you could choose as your own was withdrawal into a smaller and smaller coil of rage, until being black meant only the knowledge of your own powerlessness, of your own defeat. And the final irony: should you refuse this defeat and lash out at your captors, they would have a name for that, too, a name that could cage you just as good. Paranoid. Militant. Violent. Nigger.
- Barack Obama (from "Dreams From My Father")
Eddie Murphy predicts Obama in "The Distinguished Gentleman"
I wasn’t even looking at my tv screen when this clip section of "The Distinguished Gentleman" made me chuckle. The first section – at the very least – is vintage Obama (in more ways than one!).
Thomas Jefferson Johnson: Terry, tell me something. With all this money coming in from both sides, how does anything ever get done?
Terry Corrigan: It doesn’t. That’s the genius of the system.
Why most women who diet are doomed to fail
Most women have been on a diet at some point. Many are dieting now. The reasons range from ‘lifestyle change’ to downright self-hate, but generally stem from a competitive reaction to the tight-bodied younger models that swarm the summer pavements flashing smooth belly-flesh and tramp-stamps. I’m am glad the toned chicks oblige… it makes the world a prettier place. And even a swift glance at chick flicks and girly mags will tell you that women agree. Fat ain’t ever been all that. (Unless you’re a magical thinker )
Love fed fat soon turns to boredom . – Ovid (Roman Poet, 43BC)
Skinny ain’t sexy either, so there is a middle ground, and it involves tone and smooth curves. In a word: sleekness. While a man can drive a Hummer or toddle about in a Prius, give him Bill Gates’ money and he’ll be down at the showroom test-driving a European coupe the next day. The colours may change with taste, and the interior may be bespoke, but the chassis will be supremely aerodynamic.
One law for x and another for y
The law is equal before all of us; but we are not all equal before the law. Virtually there is one law for the rich and another for the poor, one law for the cunning and another for the simple, one law for the forceful and another for the feeble, one law for the ignorant and another for the learned, one law for the brave and another for the timid, and within family limits one law for the parent and no law at all for the child.
- George Bernard Shaw