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 Power, money, fame, and sex are social ambitions: they depend on other people for their realization. There is no power without hierarchy, no wealth without comparison, no fame without the gaping audience, no sex in solitude. And because Power Money Fame Sex are relative passions, they are insatiable - they're measured against the accomplishments of others, and therefore can never be wholly achieved. "If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon," Bertrand Russell wrote. "But Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I dare say, envied Hercules, who never existed. You cannot therefore get away from envy by means of success alone, for there will always be in history or legend some person even more successful than you are." Most people agree that one of these impulses is paramount, but they disagree about which one. It's all about money, one person insists; another protests, "Money? It's all about sex. Freud, you know." Your own focus depends on your character, your circumstances - even your location. Each era and place has its ascendant worldly passion. The 1960's was a time of power, of different groups discovering ways to seize and exercise their power. In the 1970's the emphasis slid to sex, to bedroom experimentation, to the oxymorons of open marriage and no-fault divorce. The 1980's was an age of excess and display - preoccupied with money and its trophies. In the 1990's, excess disguised itself in simplicity, and the emphasis shifted to fame: "Are you somebody?" Cities, too, assume their character from the worldly passion that perfumes the atmosphere. Power: Washington, D.C. Money: New York City. Fame: Los Angeles. Sex doesn't have its own city; it pervades these three, and all the others. So who needs a guide to using power, money, fame and sex? This guide is aimed at two groups of people: strivers and non-strivers. If you're a striver, you'll find useful material to spur you on. You can go further than you now imagine by applying these principles. Remember, the rules don't change, just their context. Today's mail-office clerk is tomorrow's mogul. If you're a non-striver, this guide will help you precisely because you're not plotting your path to a corner office or penthouse apartment. You can use the guide defensively: even if you won't use these techniques yourself, you probably don't want them to work against you. And in any event, it's amusing to examine strivers' machinations. Whether you're a striver or a non-striver, you've probably noticed that raw merit alone won't secure you your proper share of power, money, fame, or sex. Conscious strategy is sometimes necessary if you're going to keep up with people who exploit advanced techniques. To help you devise your strategy, this guide breaks down the concepts of power, money, fame, and sex and puts them back together so that you - whether a claims adjuster or a real-estate magnate or an aspiring starlet - can use them. Presented here are principles distilled from Suetonius, Tom Wolfe, Sally Quinn, Garry Wills, Vanity Fair, and the Wall Street Journal; from classics like Machiavelli's The Prince, a 16th century manual on power, and Sun Tzu's The Art of War, a 4th century B.C. manual on power, and Korda's Power! How to Get It, How to Use It, a 20th century manual on power. If you haven't yet found the time to read indispensable texts like Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class, Plutarch's Lives, Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier, Boorstin's The Image or Caro's biographies, read on. Learn from the lives of people like Richard Nixon, Bill Gates, Elizabeth Taylor, Calvin Klein, Larry Ellison, Muhammad Ali, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. You'll see that distinct patterns and rules emerge. Even though widely separated in time, place, and interests, people reproduce the same methods - mostly without conscious effort. Hugh Hefner and Dennis Rodman applied the same rule of fame (see Chapter 14). Pamela Harriman and Bill Clinton applied the same rule of sex (see Chapter 20). Lyndon Johnson and Barry Diller applied the same rule of power, as did John Sununu and Madonna and Jack Welch (see Chapter 3). Pay special attention to themes that transcend category and appear throughout the guide:
Nevertheless, however sordid, there is a value to understanding the workings of the worldly passions. Once these principles are exposed, their grip slackens. "Ah ha!" you realize. "Now I understand why my neighbors spent a fortune to decorate their house in a style so minimalist that I thought it was still under construction." Once you see that intimidating rages are a common technique of asserting power, your boss's furies lose some of their terror. (Seeing these principles laid bare may also cause you to reflect, more earnestly than before, on the moral effect of chasing these worldly prizes.) Certainly, not all methods described here are admirable. Even though we might wish that artless merit and kindness always triumphed, in fact, sycophancy works, bullying works, self-aggrandizement works. (Note, however, that their opposites also work.) The guide describes what actually succeeds rather than what ought to succeed. It's up to you to decide what methods you choose to apply. | |
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