Who’s in Charge Here?

Reflections on the Challenge

Whenever you are asked to do something you would rather not do, if you choose to comply, bring your hands together in a Namaste gesture, then perform the action willingly.

• Experiences

  T had initially declined a friend’s suggestion that they eat at a restaurant after she had finished a tiring day at the studio, preferring to go home. When she remembered the challenge, she made the Namaste gesture and agreed to go. Although she tried to act willingly, she had continued to feel resistance, as though she were directing herself along the wrong path. She recognised that her physical tiredness and need to recover had contributed to this resistance.

  When a co-working space had begun requiring bookings a day in advance, L had found the new arrangement inconvenient. He made the Namaste gesture, accepted the change and began booking ahead as requested.

Beelzebub’s Tales, Chapter 33

• Passage

  My personal significance and their notions about all my qualities and merits also changed for their individuality; I suddenly became for all ‘important’ and ‘wise,’ ‘extraordinary’ and ‘interesting,’ and so on and so forth; that is, the possessor of all kinds of abnormal being-qualities thought out by themselves.

• Discussion

  N saw this as an object lesson in how rapidly attitudes could change once someone had been recognised by a figure of authority. Beelzebub had previously struggled to obtain even a permit, but was suddenly treated almost like royalty.

  T described this as the opposite of an individual awakening: the community had collectively changed its perception of someone it had previously considered unimportant. She suggested that Beelzebub had acquired a borrowed prestige through his association with the Emperor, while the Emperor’s own status similarly depended upon a shared belief in his importance.

• Passage

  As each word of every such terrestrial ‘czar’ can have and often does have serious consequences not only for the beings of that community of whom he is czar, but also for the beings of other communities, therefore each word must be thought out from every side.

  Well, for this, around these emperors or czars who become such by hereditary rights or by election, there are many specialists from among the ordinary three-brained beings there, in order that they may prompt them as to what they must do and say in every circumstance; and these promptings and directions must be carried out in such a way that the strangers may not notice that their emperor or czar manifests not from his own but from others’ initiative.

• Discussion

  L saw the modern use of a teleprompter as an equivalent of the prompting described in the extract, enabling leaders to proceed through successive meetings delivering prepared and often formulaic speeches. T added that the words might now be supplied by speechwriters or AI.

  J suggested that political decisions made by those in authority often derived from their advisers or subordinates. He saw a parallel within the individual, who might similarly have different inner advisers influencing action.

  T connected this with the image of the body politic and asked who supplied its will, just as one might ask who drove the individual carriage. L similarly observed that the same automatic processes could operate collectively and personally: despite his apparent authority, the Emperor had little freedom and was himself a puppet. T described him as a cipher.

• Passage

  I personally at least would not under any conditions be in the skin of such a terrestrial emperor or czar, and would neither wish it for my very worst enemy nor for the enemy of my nearest.

• Discussion

  J questioned whether Beelzebub was entirely fair in portraying the position of emperor or czar as wholly undesirable, observing that such a position also brought compensations.

  N asked whether Beelzebub’s judgement applied specifically to the Russian czar or to monarchy more generally. J understood Russia as an extreme example of a condition that could also arise elsewhere. T suggested that the ruler described had become a mascot rather than a true leader, leaving the system fragile and ossified.