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How does a leader stay in and consolidate power?

How does a leader become/remain popular?

Tuesday, September 17, 13

erra & ishum (47-62)

✤ Why do you stay in the city, like a feeble old man,

✤ why do you stay at home, like a weak little child?

✤ ...

✤ Even a prince who stays in town cannot eat his bread in peace;

✤ he is mocked by his people, and his person is despised.

✤ City bread in plenty cannot compare to flat loaves baked in embers,

✤ the sweetest beer cannot compare to water from a goatskin,

✤ nor can a terraced palace be compared to a hut in the field.


the teaching for king merikare (40-45)

✤ Show due respect to the nobles, support your people,

✤ Fortify your borders and your buffer zones.

✤ ...

✤ Promote your officials that they may fulfil your decrees,

✤ For he whose house is wealthy will not take sides (against you)...

✤ A poor man does not speak honestly...

✤ He will be partial toward him who is generous to him

✤ And biased toward the one who pays him.”


the teaching for king merikare (20)

✤ ...who persists as a troublemaker and a spreader of talk,

✤ Get rid of him, and slay his children,

✤ Obliterate his name, and destroy his supporters,

✤ Banish (all) memory of him and of the partisans who respect him.


2 Samuel 15:2-6 (New International Version)

15Whenever anyone came with a complaint to be placed before the king for a decision, Absalom would call out to him, “What town are you from?” He would answer, “Your servant is from one of the tribes of Israel.” 3 Then Absalom would say to him, “Look, your claims are valid and proper, but there is no representative of the king to hear you.” 4 And Absalom would add, “If only I were appointed judge in the land! Then everyone who has a complaint or case could come to me and I would see that they receive justice.”5 Also, whenever anyone approached him to bow down before him, Absalom would reach out his hand, take hold of him and kiss him. 6 Absalom behaved in this way toward all the Israelites who came to the king asking for justice, and so he stole the hearts of the people of Israel.


the teaching of king amenemhet I for his son senwosret (1,5)

✤ Put no trust in a brother,

✤ Acknowledge no one as a friend.


How is the power of speech portrayed?


the teaching for king merikare (25-34)

✤ One who disseminates talk is a disrupter of the city.

✤ ...

✤ A single dissenter can disrupt the (entire) army.

✤ ...

✤ Be proficient in speech, so that you may be strong,

✤ For the strength of a king is his tongue.

✤ Words are mightier than any struggle...


the maxims of ptahhotep (11,9)

✤ Your silence will be more profitable than babbling,

✤ So speak only when you know that you are qualified.

✤ ...

✤ For speech is more difficult than any craft,

✤ And only the competent can endow it with authority.


j.l. austin: ‘performative’ speech acts

a. ‘I do (take this woman to be my lawful wedded wife)’ – as uttered in the course of the marriage ceremony.

b. ‘I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth’ – as uttered when smashing the bottle against the stem.

c. ‘I give and bequeath my watch to my brother’ – as occurring in a will.

In these examples it seems clear that to utter the sentence ... is not to describe my doing of what I should be said in so uttering to be doing or to state that I am doing it: it is to do it. … What are we to call a sentence or an utterance of this type? I propose to call it a performative sentence or a performative utterance, or, for short, a ‘performative.’ (pp. 5-6)

✤ (From: J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words, ed. J. O. Urmson and Marina Sbisá. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962.)


the maxims of ptahhotep (11,5-11,7)

✤ Do not repeat slander,

✤ And do not listen to it,

✤ For it is but the prattling of a churlish man.

✤ Repeat only what is seen, not what is heard,

✤ Or forget it and say nothing at all.

✤ ...

✤ Slander is like a nightmare;

✤ Divorce yourself from it.


virgil: the aeneid

She thrives on speed, stronger for every stride,Straightway Rumour flies through Libya’s great cities,Rumour, swiftest of all evils in the world. …… Rumour, quicksilver afootand swift on the wing, a monster, horrific, hugeand under every feather on her body —what a marvel—an eye that never sleeps and as many tongues as eyesand as many raucous mouths and ears pricked up for news.… By day she keeps her watch,crouched on a peaked roof or palace turret,terrorising the great cities, clinging as fastto her twisted lies as she clings to words of truth.

Virgil, The Aeneid, trans. Robert Fagles, (New York: Penguin Classics, 2010), 133-134.


How is wisdom characterized?

Is it innate, or cultivated?

Do these texts provide ‘absolute’ rules to go by?



✤ “If you come up against an aggressive adversary (in court),

✤ One who has influence and is more excellent than you...”

✤ “If you come up against an aggressive adversary,

✤ Your equal, one who is of your own social standing...”

✤ “If you come up against an aggressive adversary,

✤ A man of low standing, one who is not your equal...”

✤ “If you are a ruler responsible for the concerns of the populace...”


the maxims of ptahhotep (5,9)

✤ Do not be haughty because of your knowledge,

✤ But take counsel / with the unlearned man as well as with the learned,

✤ For no one has ever attained perfection of competence,

✤ And there is no craftsman who has acquired (full) mastery.



✤ The (ruler) of the two banks is intelligent;

✤ The king, the lord of courtiers, will not act foolishly.

✤ He was wise even at his coming forth from the womb,

✤ And God has made him preeminent over the land above countless others.


the teaching of king amenemhet Ifor his son senwosret (1,5)

✤ I was generous to the pauper, I sustained the orphan,

✤ I caused him who had nothing to become at length like a man of means.

✤ But it was one who ate my bread who conspired (against me),

✤ One to whom I had given my support devised dread deeds thereby,

✤ Those clad in my fine linen behaved toward me like worthless louts,

✤ And those anointed with my myrrh made my way slippery before me.



✤ One may be deceived by an exquisite body,

✤ But then it (suddenly) turns to misery.

✤ (All it takes) is a trifling moment like a dream,

✤ And one comes to destruction through having known them.


Date

What endures beyond (a ruler’s) death?How does a ruler create a lasting legacy?



✤ Strengthen your monuments as far as is within your power,

✤ For even a single day can contribute toward eternity.

✤ ...

✤ Let your images be sent to distant foreign lands,

✤ (Even) ones which will not acknowledge them.


2 Samuel 18:18 (New International Version)

✤ 18 During his lifetime Absalom had taken a pillar and erected it in the King’s Valley as a monument to himself, for he thought, “I have no son to carry on the memory of my name.” He named the pillar after himself, and it is called Absalom’s Monument to this day.


erra & ishum (643-649)

✤ “In the house where these tablets are placed, should Erra become enraged,

✤ should the Seven turn murderous again,

✤ the sword of destruction will not approach them,

✤ but safety will lie upon them.

✤ May this song endure forever, may it last throughout all time!

✤ May all the lands hear it and celebrate my valour,

✤ may all people come to know it, and magnify my name!”


Date post:	07-Dec-2014
Category:	News & Politics
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