In this blog, I have written of trump values. I’ve pointed out that the trump value of
natural rights adherents is liberty; the trump value of critical theorists is
equality; the trump value of federalists, as far as I am concerned, is societal
welfare. What is the trump value of
Trump, Donald Trump that is? In his
latest incarnation, that of a presidential candidate, he is sacrificing a lot –
contract arrangements that either provide or potentially provide huge profits –
so as to lead the nation to be great again.
Can we trust this man?
A guru, Robert Greene, of business acumen, instructs us that
a typical strategy or law of power is the following:
Deception is always the best
strategy, but the best deceptions require a screen of smoke to distract
people’s attention from your real purpose.
The bland exterior – like the unreadable poker face – is often the
perfect smoke screen, hiding your intentions behind the comfortable and
familiar. If you lead the sucker down a
familiar path, he won’t catch on when you lead him into a trap.[1]
Do these words of advice, cynical as they are, apply to the
Donald?
Before analyzing Trump’s motives in relation to this advice,
let me share a bit of further thinking that is relevant to this situation. Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, a fairly contemporary
Indian philosopher (he died in 1990), came up with a cyclical theory of
history. Short of reviewing the whole
theory here, let me briefly report what his thinking outlined, a view of any
society as being made up of four basic groups.
The vast majority of a population, according to the theory, consists of
labor. This portion of the population is
basically concerned with survival and arranging for reasonable levels of
comfort and security for themselves and their families. The remaining – ten percent or so – is made
up of people who are ambitious and want to advance themselves in meaningful
ways. They are talented, in one of
basically three ways: bodily skills,
intellectual skills, or acquisitive skills.
By bodily skills, I am referring to dexterity or athletic skills. Intellectual skills revolve around skills in
devising and manipulating ideas.
Acquisitive skills are about securing and even creating material goods
and services or the means to acquire those resources namely by the acquisition
of money. The theory goes on to describe
the cyclical progression of history as being one in which these three ambitious
groups, in a certain order, take turns in running a society – one being the
prominent group that holds or controls the levers of power. For example, we in the US are in control of
the acquisitive group. For outlined
reasons, the order of progression is:
the warrior group (bodily skills), intellectuals, and then those
motivated by acquiring skills. Each era
of control can last about two to three hundred years. I was introduced to this theory by reading Ravi
Batra in a popular book of the late 1980s.[2]
So what pushes Trump’s buttons: societal welfare or acquisition? I don’t know.
But I believe trust needs to be earned.
Here, we have a person who has dedicated a lifetime to acquiring a lot
of money – by his own repeated admission – and material resources. Should we trust that he has evolved and has
said to himself: I have enough and now I
want to look beyond my immediate interests and sacrifice for the nation? Or are we “suckers” being deceived?
Back to the above advice.
No one will accuse Trump of being bland.
But Greene gives us a modification to the law. When one is successful in deceiving, one is
apt to make a reputation. Greene offers
the example of B. T. Barnum. So
outrageous were his tricks and reputation that he became a source of
entertainment. Is Trump’s flamboyancy
such a source; is it so outrageous that we are willing to pay the price of
admission to see the show? And the price
here is the presidency. I believe not,
but who knows? After all, as Soren Kierkegaard
pointed out: “The world wants to be
deceived.”[3]
