THE TOP STONE AND THE FOOT STONE

I made up this story and told this to my daughter and my nephew and niece the other day. The story goes like this: One day, the Pharaoh decided to build a pyramid and not just an ordinary pyramid. The Pharaoh wanted to build the biggest, the tallest and the most beautiful pyramid ever and with that, the Pharaoh called in the Master Mason and ordered him to build him the biggest, the tallest and the most beautiful pyramid ever and to finish it as soon as humanly possible. And so, the Master Mason wasted no time and started to design and build the pyramid. During the building of the pyramid, the Master Mason set out and discovered a huge sturdy boulder and he brought it to his workshop beside the rising pyramid and he broke the giant boulder into two halves and left it there for the night. The two halves of the boulder “speak” to each other that night.

The first half asked the second half: “Hey brother, you know what they’re going to do to us?”

The second one replied: “I heard that they are going to make a pyramid and fashion one of us into the TOP STONE while the remaining one will be the FOOT STONE.”

“I see, what you want to be, brother?” asked the first one.

“The Top Stone of course! What else should I be?” replied the first.

“But why?” came the quick question.

“Why, without the Top Stone, there will be no pyramid!”

“How come?”

“How come?! When people look up at the pyramid and shouted to others, look! It’s the pyramid. They all be pointing their fingers at the top of the pyramid where the Top Stone lay, nobody would be pointing at the base of the pyramid and say, there’s the pyramid!” “The Top Stone is the crowning glory of the pyramid and without the triangular top, there will be no pyramid at all!” “Besides, there can only be one Top Stone and hence, that stone would be unique of all the stones that made up the pyramid and that is why, I wanted to be the Top Stone.”

The first went silent for a while and said: “Well, I just wanted to be something useful and to do great things, Top Stone or not. It doesn’t matter.”

“Really? It doesn’t matter?”

“Well, yeah, though the Top Stone is important and glamorous, without the Foot Stone to support it at the top. The Top Stone will fall. Though there are many of us Foot Stones that made up the pyramid, miss one Foot Stone and the whole pyramid would collapse.”

“Yeah sure, to each their dream.” Said the second stone.

The next day, the Master Mason came and fashion the second half of the boulder into the Top Stone that it desired to be while made a Foot Stone out of the first.

Both stones lay at the work site for many years waiting for their appointed time to become part of what is shaping up to be a grand edifice. Then suddenly, the Pharaoh abandoned the project all together and both stone lay in the dessert almost forgotten. Then one day, a new Pharaoh came to the throne and decided to build a bridge over a raging river and called the by now aging Master Mason to do the task. The Master Mason went to his old workshop and found both the Top Stone and the Foot Stone on the ground. The Master Mason found that the Top Stone not suitable for the project at hand because of its triangular shape and picked the Foot Stone instead and placed the latter as the foundation stone at the bottom of the river holding up the bridge and for countless years thereafter, the Foot Stone silently toiled, holding up the bridge and allowing many to cross the river safely. The Foot Stone realizes his dream of being something useful and do great things but nobody knew nor cared whereas the Top Stone was lost somewhere in the dessert buried in sand….

I told the kids that someday when they grow up, they should decide whether they would wanted to be the Top Stone or the Foot Stone and it is their choice to make… Be a Top Stone, lavished with praise with all the glamor that being on top but they had succeed in their endeavor against all odds and fierce competition lest they will be forgotten (the unfinished pyramid) or be the Foot Stone, doing important things but largely unknown, unsung, unheard of.

But guess what? They don’t understand what I’m saying. Not yet.

50 Books Challenge: Book #7: Psychology of Revolution by Gustave Le Bon

I’m already 3 months behind!

The book is quite unique and interesting in that it employs psychoanalysis in the study of a particular historical event specifically, the author uses crowd psychology in analyzing Revolutions in general and The French Revolution in particular. To date, there is no other history book that utilizes such methodology in its investigation of an event in the past. The book was published in 1896 and during that time, both the Russian Revolution and the Chinese Revolution are becoming to take its course, which is probably one of the impetus for the author to write on such a subject matter. To the modern reader, the book and by extension, the author sounded condescending, patronizing, elitist, a royalist sympathizer, an ardent Napoleonic admirer/ apologist, a sham humanitarian, and a bigot. However, this is no fault of the author but rather this is a reflection of his era or generation and the book do represent the ideas prevalent of his generation. Nevertheless, these “attributes” should not detract from the rather excellent observations of author regarding the French Revolution for such observations are universally true and applicable to any Revolution generations before and those of yet to happen. However, care should be taken to discern between the authors observations and those of his rather seemingly logical deduction which tends to be biased and speculative and is not borne out of empirical observation. A careful reading of the book would also expose some strands of thought akin to Sigmund Freud’s logic as expounded in his seminal work, “Civilization and it’s Discontent” which beautifully link the human psyche and the forces that creates the mosaic that we all know as “history”. The last two chapters of the book is rather an oddity in the sense that there seems to be no connection with the subject matter at hand but rather it looks more like the author’s political rants and opinion of the political issues of his days which is surprisingly or rather strangely sounded pretty much like the present political discourse.

50 Books Challenge: Book #6: The Myth of the Strong Leader, Political Leadership in the Modern Age by Archie Brown

The 50 books Challenge is an internet challenge whereby I should read 50 books in a year or roughly 1 book per week and right now I’m on my 11^th week but I just finished my 6^th book! I’m way behind…..

I bought this book when both presidents, Duterte and Trump were both elected to office. The title of the book piqued my curiosity but somehow I’m not convinced by the author’s conclusion. Anyway, first of all, the book is epic! Aside from the fact that it is voluminous, some 400 pages, the book is well researched with something like 20 or more political leaders examined or discussed. The author poured through biographies of late 20^th century political leaders such as Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill, Clement Atlee, Tony Blair, Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorvachev to name a few. Where biographies are absent, the author relies on historical narrative to examine the leadership styles of political leaders in the likes of Deng Xiao Ping, Mao Ze Dong, Josef Stalin. Furthermore, the author didn’t limit his studies to western leaders but also include those from the rest of the world like Nelson Madela (however, there is a preponderance of western leaders in his examination). The author also studies leaders both in democracies and in authoritarian/ totalitarian regimes. The sheer magnitude of his examination is truly epic. The author writing style is easy to read, no mumble jumble hard to understand jargon. These however are the positive things that can be said of the book. Personally, I felt that the author tend to muddle through with his examination, with a lot of digressing. He seemed to be more interested in telling a story than analyzing (hence my term examination instead of analysis). It is not boring to read per se but it is difficult to grasp what the author is trying to imply much less convey (to be fair though, with the first chapter, the author stays true to his purpose). In the latter end of the book, the book became a sort of political tirade of Tony Blair which further muddle the intent of the author in writing the book in the first place not unless the author really meant to diss Tony Blair! Furthermore, the author seemed to have a penchant of giving sweeping conclusions. For example, the author concluded that revolutions invariably give way to authoritarian regimes giving the examples of the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolutions, etc. But while the observations are true, it is equally true that not all revolutions end up being authoritarian, the foremost example being the American Revolution (to the author, peaceful revolutions like the ones sweeping the Eastern Block during the twilight of the Cold War and decline of the Soviet Union are not revolutions per se). Aside from that, I felt the author is looking at things through a tainted spectacle, i.e., the author’s view are ideologically skewed. I suspect that his political sympathy belong to that of the left wing of the British Labor Party (hence his disapproval of Tony Blair) or more aptly, the author is a Liberal Social Democrat in political persuasion. His conclusions are skewed towards his persuasion and hardly objective in assessment although he tried to present objectivity in his writings. Also, I have serious question as to the author’s definition of a “strong leader”. To the author, a “strong leader” is a leader who dominates over his colleagues in government and tend to concentrate power in his own hands. This definition tends to equate “strong leader” with “strongman”, which is pretty much a stretch. Furthermore, the author seemed to equate influence with power which are two totally different things. It could be that the author is defining the “strong leader” from the standpoint of political science but for the “masses” whether they get or able to vote or not in an election if there is one to begin with, a “strong leader” is someone who get things done, who stood up for his belief, and defend the dignity of the state he or she represents to put it mildly.  Another point to make is that every leader whether strong or weak, democratically elected or in an authoritarian/ totalitarian regime tend to maneuver themselves to a position of dominance in order to “push” their agendas. Hence, to use the accrual of power or gaining dominance over rivals and colleagues in government as a yardstick in defining a “strong leader” is inaccurate. Lastly, the author in conclusion favors a collegial decision making with consensual leadership being the best as against “strong leaders”. Yet, the author in his examination of “transformative leadership” and “redefining leadership” didn’t specifically emphasize the consensual nature of leadership but is quite adamant in later chapters in relationship to democratic, authoritarian, totalitarian leaders pointing to the failures of specific “strong leaders” due to them “going alone” or surrounded by “yes man”. There is a flaw here in his argument for one, no man is an island and that includes leaders too. A leader however strong cannot literally go it alone. The leader is just one man and as the author succinctly pointed out, his reach is only arms – length. No matter how autocratic a leader is, some form of a policy debate occur and some form of consensus is reached even if the word consensus barely applies to such an agreement. Surrounding a leader with yes man maybe true but so as the reality of myopia wherein the ruling clique is populated with people having the same ideological persuasion or same cultural view. Aside from that, navigating a fractious group with varied interests and agendas and trying to get a consensus to a final decision can cause deadlock and paralysis and is hardly a ringing endorsement of collegial decision making. Just look at Brexit. As a conclusion, if the author’s criteria were to be used in evaluating both Trump and Duterte, one can easily conclude that both are “redefining leaders”. To agree or not in the assessment is another issue.