Power, Seduction and War

The 50th Law Part Two: FEAR and POWER

Our lives are often subject to a pattern of movement that is set in motion at birth. The human animal spends an inordinate amount of time in the mother's womb. When we are suddenly thrust out of that zone of comfort--where all our needs have been met--we enter an unfamiliar world of noise and light. We cannot help but desire a return to the womb. The mother serves as a substitute for this desire and we cling to her. We experience her absence for any extended period of time as a kind of terror.

This is the source of our deepest dread--of being abandoned and facing life alone, of emptiness and separation. This infantile fear bears little relationship to reality (the mother is never very far away); it stems from weakness and ignorance. As adults, we may think we have left such a fear behind, but it remains buried deep within and determines our actions in ways we cannot imagine. From our birth to our death, we continually crave comfort, warmth and security in whatever form we can find it. Forward is life and power but a part of us always wants to regress to the womb.

In childhood, a critical phase is reached. We are no longer so weak and helpless. We have a restless, adventurous spirit and we want to explore the world around us. If we are bold and given room by our parents to attempt things, we can develop a taste for risk and freedom that will mark us well into adulthood. But if we are held back, if we experience traumas in the form of unwanted change and confrontations, adversity, criticism from others, failure on any level, feeling too alone, then the opposite movement will occur. We will develop irrational fears about the world, and we will always move back to the warmth of the family to protect us. The need for comfort becomes more powerful than the desire to explore. And if our parents are nervous and full of fears themselves, this centripetal pull will be even stronger.

Our childish anxieties always have a grain of truth to them: there is danger in the world and pain that can come from venturing too far. But the anxiety we feel makes us exaggerate the danger, focus unnecessarily on the threat and causes us to stop moving out into the world. This at least gives us the illusion of control. If we stay within the circle of what is warm and familiar we can protect ourselves from hardship and suffering--or so it seems.

In adolescence we add a new layer of fear. We look beyond our family to our peers. Our greatest anxiety is to be ridiculed and excluded from a group, which now represents to us a new circle of warmth. We seek their approval. Our personality becomes formed around this desire. We smooth away our rough edges, what makes us an individual, and become obsessed with what people think of us and how we can please them.

At some point on this journey we find ourselves thrust into the cold and merciless work world. The illusion of being protected by mother, family or group is now gone. We must fend for ourselves. Our actions will determine how far we advance towards power. And if we continue to carry within us the irrational and unchallenged fears of our youth, we will inevitably resort to the regressive pattern that began in infancy. We will stick to a job or position that seems secure. Within that job, we can collect a paycheck and have our needs met--a womb-like relationship. We will adhere to the behavior patterns of our peers, or listen to the voices of our parents. Deep within, our thought process will also be infected. Certain ideas, cherished beliefs, strategies of action will become fixed in our brains; we will no longer be so open to new concepts or ways of doing things. Our minds will circle in familiar patterns.

Credit: Anna Biller

We can express this in the following way (see diagram above): we begin life holding on to positions of comfort and dependency. As we get older we are naturally drawn outward, towards actions that will bring us power. This outer zone seems unfamiliar and unpredictable, but inviting. At certain points of moving in this direction, however, we inevitably encounter a resistance or obstacle that triggers a fear--that of being alone, having to confront people and possibly displease them, making mistakes and being criticized, feeling bored and empty, dealing with change and possible adversity, losing what we have, facing death itself. At the instant we feel this fear we look backwards towards what is safe and comforting and move in that direction. We do not explore or take risks. We react and retreat in a single line. We draw a circle around ourselves that cuts us off from power, one that becomes a kind of self-imposed prison.

Life naturally involves moments of pain and loneliness, battles and setbacks. To feel fear and retreat because of them is to struggle against life itself. As conscious, rational adults, we are called to finally move past these childish illusions and fears, to embrace life and reality.

This is the essence of the 50th Law: when you move past this self-imposed circle, then you suddenly have options. You enter the realm of power. In the face of adversity, you no longer retreat along a single line. You explore the world and remain open to trying several things, depending on circumstances. With antagonists coming your way, you can bait them into a rash attack and follow this up with a counterattack; or you can lay low and buy time, seem to befriend them; or, believing the threat to be minor, you can choose to ignore them and conserve your energy. Beyond the circle of fear, you have the freedom to experiment and be creative with your response. You adhere to the 50th Law when you operate in this way.

Moving in the regressive, fearful direction, your options narrow with each passing year. Your fears tend to create new fears, as you back yourself into a corner and lose contact with power. Moving in the other direction brings the opposite dynamic. By being bold and true to your individuality, you make people respect you. They tend to get out of your way or follow you. You create your own circumstances, and one success tends to bring another. You have flow, moving with the chaos and changes in the modern world, instead of holding on to the past. All of this translates into potential force, as defined by Sun-tzu.

At such a point, the fears noted on the circle reverse themselves into forms of power. Overcoming the fear of loneliness, for instance, helps you develop self-reliance; moving past the fear of criticism brings you the power to learn from your mistakes; getting over the fear of boredom and empty moments helps you cultivate discipline and the ability to learn any craft.

Understand: we all feel too much fear in our lives. It is the source of our unhappiness. Almost all powerful, creative people in this world feel less fear than others; it is the secret of their success in any field.

Being fearless is not necessarily what you think. It does not mean being aggressive and bold at every moment. People who are uncontrollably aggressive in life are often secretly governed by fears and insecurities. Fearlessness on this level is more about possessing balance. When events occur, neutral or seemingly negative, fearless types have the capacity to focus on reality and not give disproportionate weight to the threat or risk. Having confronted and overcome the fear of death itself gives them a sense of proportion and priority--considering that our days are numbered, it is often not worth it to get so upset over the petty battles of the moment; better to act with urgency and energy on things that really matter. Unconcerned with what people think of them, these types feel free to give rein to their desires and whims, to be themselves.

In the end, what marks their spirit is a sense of calmness, freedom and mobility that are the necessary qualities for power in periods of dynamic change such as now. They are not weighed down by all the negative emotions that come from being overly concerned about others opinions, or feeling dependent on people. This frees up more energy to be creative. And what spells the difference between these types and those encircled by fear is merely the attitude towards life that they have chosen.

The book The 50th Law is based on a simple premise and strategy: You are asleep. You are not aware of the degree to which fear determines your actions. What bothers people now and makes them fret and retreat would hardly have upset an American in the 19th century, facing constant threats from the environment. We cannot see this, however. We don't have enough distance and detachment to observe how far we have traveled down the path of fear. And so the book is designed to fill such a role--to wake you up and make you reflect upon the fears inhibiting your mobility. There is no good in avoiding our fears and pretending they don't exist--we must turn around and look them square in the eye so we can move past them.

The fearless types in history generally experienced harsh circumstances that toughened them up. But many people suffer adversity and are simply overwhelmed by them. The difference is the ability that some people have to absorb these experiences and reflect on the negative influence of fear in their lives. What matters is awareness not experience. And so The 50th Law functions as a tool for leading you to similar levels of awareness. Each chapter focuses on a particular primal fear we all feel. It shows how the fear hides itself within you and subtly misdirects you in life. It indicates ways to confront and overcome each of these fears, strategies on how to convert them into their opposites. Each chapter is illustrated with stories from Fifty's life, as well as from historical figures who are exemplars of the 50th Law. Such stories serve as inspiration and guideposts.

This is only half of the equation, however. What will probably happen is that at some point during or after the reading you will have to confront some novel situation or difficulty. Made aware of how fear will cause you unconsciously to react and retreat, you will stop that motion and reflect. You will not give undue attention to the threat or danger that it involves. That alone will make you open to the possibility of trying something different. And having tasted a bit of the freedom that comes from moving past the circle, you will want more and more of this. Once you set foot on this path, you will never want to turn back.

Coming next--Part Three, The Republicans, Barack Obama and the 50th Law.

In the meantime, you can pre-order The 50th Law, read more about it from Harper Studio, or check Thisis50.com for updates.

The 50th Law

Over the course of the past eighteen months I have started dozens of blog entries, only to find that the passage of a few days or a week made my ideas seem irrelevant. Events in the world were moving too fast for me to keep up with them. The main culprit here was the book I had been working on during this period, The 50th Law (due out on September 8, 2009), and my tendency to want to concentrate on only one thing at a time. In the months to come I plan to recycle several ideas that are worth salvaging from those aborted blogs, but for now I would like to simply describe the evolution of the new book and how it has altered my perception of many of the dramatic events we have witnessed in the past few years. (I will be posting this in four parts.)

In early 2007, people in Fifty Cent's camp contacted me to set up a meeting between us. He was a big fan of The 48 Laws and was interested in collaborating on some kind of book project. I agreed to the meeting (who wouldn't), but I was initially skeptical about such a collaboration.

I am not someone who is normally drawn to the world of celebrities. By necessity, anyone who has reached the top has had to resort to all kinds of manipulative maneuvers, but most people in the limelight try to disguise all of that as best they can. They want to project to the public their angelic, spiritual side, highlighting the progressive causes they support, their inner goodness. Obviously a rapper would have a different angle, wanting to project an image of toughness and infallibility. But all of this is mythmaking--a power maneuver in its own right. My primary interest is ripping away the façade people like to present and showing you the inner workings of power, rats and all. And it is often easier to practice this analysis on dead people.

In our first meeting, however, I quickly saw that Fifty was different. He was in the midst of a power struggle with a rival rapper and he talked quite openly about the strategies he was employing, including mistakes he had made along the way. He analyzed his own actions with detachment, as if he were talking about another person. Over the last few years he had witnessed a lot of nasty maneuvering within the music business, and he seemed to want to discuss this with somebody from the outside. He was not interested in myths but reality. Contrary to his public persona, he had a Zen-like calmness that impressed me.

After the meeting and doing some research on him I came to the following conclusion: Fifty is a master practitioner of the The 48 Laws; he exemplifies a type that has always fascinated me--what Machiavelli calls the New Prince. Most princes or traditional leaders in this world occupy their position of power because of their background, connections and a bit of luck. They have a good education and perhaps some skill, but their power is limited because it depends on external factors--things that have been given to them from the outside, including knowledge. If fortune shifts, they are not able to adapt very easily. They remain tied to the past, ideas from books, and all kinds of conventions they have absorbed over the years. These shifts in fortune finally reveal them to be incompetent or mediocre.

New Princes generally emerge in times of great turmoil and chaos. They start at the bottom--with no privileges, connections, or money. What they have in abundance is ambition and hunger for power. If they make mistakes, they quickly analyze what they did wrong and learn the lesson. Considering the odds against them, they must stay focused, alert and patient. If they begin to rise up the ladder, it is almost purely by their own actions. They do not depend on others. They can handle downturns in fortune because they are used to adversity and turning negatives into positives. Since their education comes from experience and observation, they can think in the moment and adapt to their environment. They re-write the rules that others then slavishly follow. A classic example of a New Prince would be Napoleon Bonaparte.

Considering the openness that I sensed in my initial meeting with Fifty, I believed that this book project could represent for me a unique opportunity to study a New Prince in action. In a modern twist, Fifty could serve as my Cesare Borgia, and I as his Machiavelli.

I had another thought at the time: America can be country of great social mobility, but in many ways we remain people who are locked in mental ghettos. Academics tend to live in their cloistered world and talk among themselves. Celebrities associate with their own kind, to an absurd extent. As most of us get older, we like to be around people who share our values, even though this might close us off from interesting encounters that would challenge our most cherished beliefs and preconceptions. Look at any progressive neighborhood, such as where I live within Los Angeles, and you will see a rather depressing homogeneity in people's style, tastes and values. To me, these ghettos are dull and deadening. I live for encounters with people from other cultures who think in different ways and make me reflect on my own limited perspective.

Although Fifty and I might have a similar way of looking at the power game, we come from diametrically opposed backgrounds. This book could be an experiment in which we would bring our two worlds together, on the plane of ideas, and see where this would lead.

With these considerations in mind I agreed to do the project. Together we came up with a method. I would follow him around and witness him in action on many fronts. I would go to Southside Queens and interview people who knew him from his drug-dealing days. As much as possible I would try to pierce the world of the urban hustler and learn its secrets. Most important, Fifty and I would have lengthy discussions about the power game and what it means to advance in this harsh, competitive world. From all this research and our talks, the exact subject and structure of this book would come to us.

Several weeks into the process, after witnessing many strange events (some of which eventually found their way into the book), I had a revelation of sorts about hustling, the New Prince and Fifty himself. We humans are generally frightened and timid creatures; we carry within us so many deeply embedded fears--of change, criticism, being alone, death itself. People who feel less fear in life have a distinct advantage. They are more adaptable and their careers are longer. Fearlessness is in fact the quality that distinguishes a New Prince, and one that Fifty has in abundance.

In his days as a hustler, he had to deal with endless confrontations, violence and betrayal. He learned that to feel fear on the streets could be fatal; he had to project a bold front. He saw the value in taking risks, experimenting and even failing--a hustler is always trying new things. And he has brought this fearless mindset into the world of corporate America, which is generally governed by cautious and conservative Princes, intellectually tied to the past. What they perceive as chaos, he sees as the normal state of things. Change, turmoil and adversity do not faze him in the least; in fact, they bring out the best in him. This is his strategic advantage.

At the base of all fears is that of death itself--a dread that influences our daily actions in so many ways. Fifty had that fear bleed out of him the day he survived the assassination attempt on him in 2000. This, I believe, accounts for his uncanny calmness.

Without really understanding it fully, I could sense that this quality was the source of his remarkable rise from the bottom to the top. There is another aspect to it: although we may seem to be rational, civilized creatures, we remain animals and as such we tend to read signals from people in a preverbal manner. In an encounter with someone new, we register their levels of fear and timidity--from their tone of voice, mannerisms, the look in their eye. If we sense that their fear level is higher than our own, we unconsciously look down on them, treat them with a touch of disdain and respect them less. If their fear level is lower than ours, we are either intimidated and get out of their way, or we are seduced by their self-assurance and follow them.

Confidence can be contagious, just as the awkwardness and timidity of others can infect us as well. Fifty's fearlessness has this seductive power over those around him. In the few short weeks I had spent trailing him, I could feel its inspiring effect on myself.

The task before me was to get at the heart of this quality, break it down, make it understandable so that anyone could move closer to the ideal of fearlessness and experience the power it could bring. This, I decided, had to be the subject of the book and in discussing it with Fifty he agreed.

Together we mapped out ten common types of fears and the reverse power that you can obtain by overcoming them. We found stories from his own life that would illustrate these ideas, many of them culled from his days as a hustler and even highlighting mistakes along the way that taught him valuable lessons. Later, from my own research, I would bring in examples from other historical figures who exemplified this trait. Many of them would be African Americans--Frederick Douglass, James Baldwin, Miles Davis, Malcolm X, Hurricane Carter, et al--whose fearless quality was forged by their harsh struggles against racism. Others would come from all periods and cultures--the Stoics, Joan of Arc, JFK, Leonardo da Vinci, Mao tse-tung, and so on.

With all of this research in hand, I began to write the book in 2008. But as I thought about the material and analyzed our discussions, I came to the conclusion that there was something much larger going on here. This was not merely about some inspiring personal quality that can bring power. Without a fearless attitude, you have no balance, no hold on reality. You overreact to events and your strategies misfire. You could understand all of the laws of power but if you remain infected by fears, you will apply them in the wrong way and any success you have will be fleeting. The truth is that a fearless approach is the necessary starting point of almost any successful or creative action in this world. The 50th is in fact the ultimate law of power, the key to the castle.

Coming next:

Part Two--a glimpse into the Law itself, its mechanisms, and how freedom from fear translates into freedom in general.

Part Three--The Republicans, Barack Obama and the 50th Law.

Part Four--The Economic Meltdown, the Fear Culture and the 50th Law.

In the meantime, you can pre-order The 50th Law, read more about it from Harper Studio, or check Thisis50.com for updates.

Interview with Robert Greene

[Marcus was good enough to remind me to post this here. I announced it over at RudiusMedia.com earlier today. -Ben]

Vibe.com has an interview with Robert Greene on his collaboration with 50 Cent for the book The 50th Law.

Essentially the hustler is a figure to me, thats very American. It goes back to the 19th Century. Its ingrained in our country. We've always kind of had that figure. But it kinda got taken to another level in urban America in the 20th century. Predominantly associated with the black hustler. The hustler is an entrepreneur. This book celebrates their mentality. These are people who are incredibly resourceful. They are incredibly inventive and creative. They just don't have the resources for anything that we consider worthy. But much of what they do is just as interesting as a business man or politician. Its working with the little you have, and making something out of it. The attitude, and the way they go about it fascinated me.

Barack v. Hillary: Maneuver Warfare

But Cassius and Brutus were the most gloriously conspicuous--precisely because their statues were not to be seen. Tacitus

In looking at this election cycle, pundits have been talking about the importance of authenticity. "It is fatal for a politician to look fake. They must show that they believe in something with conviction. The public has grown tired of professional politicians." But this is nothing new. The desire for authenticity in leaders comes and goes in cycles. John F. Kennedy benefited from this hunger and he also knew how to exploit it to maximum effect. He was not fake, but he could be a consummate actor when necessary. Andrew Jackson was perhaps our first great politician to use this dynamic to gain power. (In this vein, I recommend one of my favorite all-time books The Fall of Public Man, by Richard Sennett.)

Authenticity is a tricky thing. In dealing with people we know, it is hard to read through a person and see how deep their sincerity runs. Children learn how to play up their emotions for effect, and when we see people being emotional, we tend to think it is authentic. There are, however, certain give-away signs; we can often discern people who are fake by their body language and facial expressions--a Richard Nixon, or Mitt Romney come to mind. On the other hand, we can be easily duped by these same eyes. Ronald Reagan would be seem to be the archetype of the genuine politician, whether you liked him or not, but Reagan was an actor--schooled by years in Hollywood and television commercials in how to make sincerity count on camera, how to convey conviction. He was not necessarily fake, but an actor nonetheless.

It is hard to base a judgment of a political figure on such tricky things. And it is just as hard to win an election based primarily on appearing more authentic than the other side. Kennedy won the election partly by framing himself as new, fresh, more genuine than the stuffy figures of the Eisenhower era, but this framing was very strategic. He also benefited from the timing of his campaign--a moment of relative prosperity when people were yearning for change. Something was in the air. He exploited this.

In the end, in war, business or politics, it is strategy that will secure your victory, not the depth of your emotions or convictions. Authenticity or the appearance of it can certainly help (or hurt in some cases), but is never enough.

As I talked about it in Strategy 20 of the WAR book, politics is maneuver warfare: staking out positions and fighting for them. Taking positions that push you into corners might gain you some momentary success, as you come out fighting, but in the end, you have decreasing options and you end up tiring the public by doing the same thing, by being so predictable.

Franklin Roosevelt was the master of the game, although he had the advantage of dealing with much shorter campaign times. His goal was to seem overall like a strong leader, with definite convictions, but to never commit too tightly to anything early on in the campaign. He wanted positions that would allow him to react to inevitable changes in the news and exploit them. He wanted flexibility and at the same time he used his opponents' rigid, one-line ideas, to push them further into corners. He set a firm tone, took an overall stance (against big business, for the working man), but gave himself room to maneuver. He was amazingly fluid, striking back at his opponents or playing above the fray, depending on what was needed for the moment. He won four presidential campaigns.

With all this in mind, let us look at the three main Democratic candidates as they play maneuver warfare. First and least would have to be John Edwards. Like a boxer who comes to rely on one punch and finds himself boxed into a corner, John Edwards came out at the bell as the fighter for the middle class. This position may have looked good at the start, as he staked out solid positions. But it is a position that is too familiar from elections in the 80s or 90s. It does not wear well over time. It becomes a one-note campaign that may gain in stridency but wears down your patience and interest over the months of this primary slog. It is a defensive posture that ends up in a corner, where it will die.

Barack Obama has taken more of the JFK approach. His message has been remarkably consistent, backed up by his record. He is running a positive campaign, focused on uniting the country, and on the future. It is politics for a new generation, not predicated on the old wars of the baby boomers. He has not strayed from this and so it seems quite authentic. He has been admirably consistent. On specific issues he has come out with specific programs, all framed by a coherent philosophy. Because it is not tied to anything as rigid as being the defender of the middle class, he does not appear a one-note candidate and you do not grow bored of hearing his speeches. He can change the subject without veering from an overall tone.

The problem is that his strategy is very much dependent on circumstance. When times are good, people are in the mood for such an uplifting message. Then you can catch wind in your sails and even tack in certain directions, all carried away by your optimism. This worked brilliantly for Kennedy. In such times, people are more willing to take a risk on somebody new. (Bear in mind as well that Kennedy had more years in the Senate and had his World War II experiences to round out his resume.) It also helps in such circumstances to paint the other side as conservative, a force from the past, to play up what is uninspiring in their message. (It helps to have Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon as your main opponent.)

When world events were at a relative lull, Obama was in a good position. When the worsening economy began to take center stage, his message did not resonate as well, and his options shrank. And considering the volatile nature of the times we live in, it would have been better to bet on problems and difficult times up ahead. His message remains consistent, rings true, but has less and less appeal when future problems loom more than future possibilities. (It is not a question of him having altered his strategy, which he could and should not do, but the timing--a few more years in the Senate, and some patience.)

It is not too late to remedy this, but he is facing the tag-team of Master Triangulators. Triangulation is Dick Morris's name for something that Clinton did that is a variation on the old military strategy of according with the enemy, what I call Mirroring in the 48 Laws, and discuss as well in the Counterattack Strategy.

So much of marketing or politics involves separation--what makes you different from all the other politicians out there. Hillary has her years as First Lady, her solid seven-year record in the Senate, her famous husband. She can stand apart as the person with the most experience, the most battle-tested, and it is hard to take that away from her. Obama has successfully separated himself as the agent of change, a new face, somebody to break up the stale politics of Washington. A figure of hope. He also has his solid stance against the war.

The triangulation strategy means embracing Obama so tightly that he cannot get away anymore and separate himself. On the Iraq war--move Hillary in his direction, make her come out with new proclamations about getting out of Iraq that are parallel to his. Obfuscate her past votes on the war by focusing attention on the future. In one debate, she masterfully asked Obama to agree to the same commitment to end the war. On change, make the argument she would be the first woman president--an undeniable shift in the political landscape.

On the seamier side, bait Barack Obama into dirty fights about his own record and votes. If he avoids the bait, he starts to look a bit weak and as if he were hiding something. If he takes the bait, as he did in the past debate, he starts to look less and less like a different kind of politician, losing the one sterling quality that separated him from the others in this war over position.

It is a masterful bit of strategizing. If some of the dirt rubs off on Hillary, as it will, much of it will really settle on Bill, who is willing to be sullied at this point. Besides, she is not building her campaign on her purity and nobility in spirit. She is the tough lady, the Margaret Thatcher of the Democratic Party, who will get the job done. From her down moment in New Hampshire she has shown remarkable fluidity. She can play the underdog, the victim of sorts. She can also be the crusader. This flexibility does not come off as mere opportunism, as with a Mitt Romney, because it is anchored by her core message of being the candidate of experience. She has not tailored her message to each audience, like Romney, merely shifted tone to fit the circumstance.

For Obama, he has not lost yet. But he must not repeat the mistakes of the debate. He must strike a delicate balance of deflecting their accusations in a more diplomatic manner, showing a difference in feel and attitude. He is not a politician in their style. Let others on his team, surrogates if you will, make the case about his record on the Iraq War, or his votes in Illinois. Focus attention as much as he can on the future, on what he will do to change the dynamic in Washington and make the case that Hillary will bring more of the same stalemate by exactly the kind of partisan bickering she is trying to stir up. Anger does not play well on television. Being spirited and enthusiastic has great infecting power, but anger makes everyone uncomfortable. (In the televised debates of 1960, it was Nixon who seemed to lose his cool.)

The problem for the Democrats, as they face in each election, is where all of this positions the eventual winner once it is all over. John Kerry, for instance, left himself in a terrible position after winning the nomination. This is something to analyze in more detail when I look at the maneuvering of the Republicans and how it will play out for the general election.

One final note: much has been made of the unusualness of this campaign cycle. This generally refers to how volatile it has been, how there is no clear frontrunner in either party, how unpredictable it has all become. Attention is generally focused on the candidates. On the Democratic side, the voters have some good, solid choices and so their votes are evenly split. On the Republican side, the lack of a candidate to excite the public is why things go back and forth and no one can seem to win two primaries in a row.

My theory would be different. I would look at the voters instead of the candidates, the changed cultural landscape of America. We are a much more fragmented public than ever before. Our minds are barraged by so much information from so many directions. We find it harder and harder to focus on anything for very long. Because of this our loyalties to a brand, to a politician, to a rock group are much thinner. There are too many things competing for our attention. This makes us vulnerable to changes in the air, to circumstances altering our opinions, to wild viral swings.

This is not to say that some people do not feel very deeply attached to one candidate or the other, only that there are less people than before who feel this way and there are more of the undecideds, the ambivalents, etc. One candidate will win, and people will attach themselves to him or her, but this attachment is a bit tenuous. Politics is so much more complicated than before. It is time to re-read The Prince. Just a theory.

Cui Bono

In the Machiavellian perspective, few events in public life are rarely what they seem to be. Power depends on appearances, on manipulating what the public sees. On seeming good, while doing what is necessary to gain and maintain power. Sometimes it is easy to see through the fog and pick out a political figure's motives or intentions. Other times it is quite complicated--what is really going on, we ask ourselves?

In the new media environment, the ability to create fog and confusion has been greatly enhanced. Stories and rumors can be planted with virtually no source behind them. The story will spread virally. Before people begin to question the validity of story A their attention is distracted by something else, story B or C; in the meantime story A takes root in people's minds in subtle ways. It is an added layer of uncertainty and doubt that makes it quite easy for the Karl Roves of the world to play all kinds of insinuation games.

To decipher events that seem hard to read, I sometimes rely on a strategy that comes from the Latin cui bono. It was first used in this context by Cicero and it literally translates, "for whose good, or benefit?" It means-- when you are trying to figure out the motives behind some murky action, look to see whom it really benefits in the end, and then work backwards. Self¬-interest rules the world.

Take for instance the recent article of Robert Novak: in it, he claims that various sources have reported to him that people in the Clinton camp are sitting on scandalous information about Barack Obama. This story, merely a week old, is now half¬-forgotten, but it represents a scary trend. The actual scandalous information is not revealed nor even hinted at. Nor is the source. Everything is left vague and open, its veracity depending on the reputation of Mr. Novak himself.

And so we ask here, cui bono? Clearly we can rule out Hillary herself. The story only hurts her in the short and long run, feeding into suspicions about the Clintons and their sometimes dubious political maneuverings. It is almost impossible to believe that someone from within her camp would reveal this to Novak (or anyone else) unless this person was trying to sabotage the Clinton campaign (a possibility, but a slim one).

It certainly benefits Barack Obama, as it allows him to change the subject from his tepid performance in the last debate, and to focus attention on Hillary's weakness--few people trust her. It allows Obama to play above the fray and point fingers at "politics as usual." But it is hard to imagine this originating from the Obama camp, in some disguised form. If the stratagem were ever revealed as such, it would ruin his reputation. It would not be worth the risk, or the potential benefit of a temporary point to make. This is far too dangerous and complicated a maneuver to be believable.

Finally, there are interests within the Republican Party itself. By cui bono standards this is the one that makes the most sense. (Cui bono is always a calculation of probabilities, never of certainties.) The greatest fear among Republicans is that they have to face a candidate like Hillary, with a united and angry party behind her. They need to inflict some wounds on her before she becomes a candidate. The Democrats must be weakened from within.

Planting stories like this will hurt Hillary's reputation. They will act like little pinpricks that over the course of the campaign start to inflict some damage. It might elevate Obama; in the process, if the race for the nomination became tight, the campaign could turn nasty. There is nothing like a nasty fight for the nomination that gives the opposing party fodder for the general election. It takes a Howard Dean to show the weaknesses of a John Kerry. If Obama wins the nomination, so much the better for the Republicans.

This story could be planted by a Republican and fed to Novak, with or without his knowledge. We will never know. It is the nature of such articles that they only feed uncertainty. And one side seems to benefit most from this uncertainty.