Flattery and sound advice

In Lake Caliraya, back when simple recreation and nobler leisure were still affordable amenities of life, some people – resort owners, sports fishermen and a few local residents – thought of stocking the lake with American largemouth bass. A superbly smart, resourceful and predatory species, the import took no time dominating the native hito, dalag and biya; it even outmuscled another predator, the tilapia – an earlier import from Egypt. The largemouth bass population rapidly increased and provoked an interesting mix of excitement and anxiety among those who lived around the lake.

The bass provided much thrill to those who considered it great sports deceiving the wary and powerful fish into taking an artificial lure and landing it on the thinnest line possible. Most of these thrill-seekers were anglers out to try their luck with Caliraya’s trophy fish. Some residents who benefited from providing their weekend guests auxiliary services shared the latter’s excitement although with a much more pragmatic – income-oriented – turn of mind.

Most of the local people needed to catch fish too, not so much because it was sporting to do so but because it augmented their daily fare and made possible their subsistence incomes. Since the local fish had been much decimated by the largemouth bass, they also tried to catch the latter initially using their customary nets, traps and set lines. To no avail.

For quite some time, the smart fish somehow avoided the local fishermen’s nets and traps and disdained their traditional baits. Only when the local people discovered the basses’ vulnerability did they finally manage to catch the fish regularly.

They did not have to chase the fish at all. It would come unerringly to them, near enough to be caught with either a basic hand net or a crude speargun fashioned from sharpened umbrella stems and powered by cheap rubber bands.

The largemouth bass, it turned out, could not resist applause. All a fisherman had to do was clap his hands underwater and the terribly smart fish came to feed off the sound of praise!

Flattery is as irresistible to politicians as it is to the largemouth bass. The more crafty and powerful – and largemouthed – the politicansd are, the more vulnerable they appear to be to those whose standard offering is praise, praise and yet more praise.

This is particularly disastrous in these critical times. Somehow, those who run this country must be at least partly shielded from their own vulnerabilities and encouraged to wield political power more responsibly. Perhaps, one may share with them the timely thoughts of a renowned guru on how to deal with flatterers — the pernicious breed that would make a national leader less than five feet tall believe that s/he is at least a six- or seven-footer, tall enough to be the towering center holding up a politically tottering universe, or, alternatively, the singular savior of a cruelly crucified nation.

Machiavelli, in his thoughts on how flatterers are to be avoided, advises princes, czars and czarinas to develop their capabilities for seeking and confronting truth. He also counsels them to cultivate a special breed of truthtellers among those in close contact with them: "For there is no way to guard oneself from flatterers than by letting people know that you will not be offended by being told the truth; but when everyone is able to tell you the truth, you lose their respect. Therefore a wise leader should adopt a third means, choosing wise men … and only to those should he allow the freedom to speak truthfully to him, and only concerning those matters about which he asks and nothing else. But he should ask them about everything and listen to their opinions, and afterward deliberate by himself, in his own way; … he should act in such a way that everyone may know that the more freely he speaks, all the more he will be acceptable: aside from these [truthful advisers], he should not want to hear any others, he should carry through what was decided and be firm in his decisions. Who does otherwise either falls prey to the flatterers or changes his mind many times with the divergence of opinions: because of this, he [the leader] has little esteem.

He continues: "A leader . . . should always seek advice, but only when he wishes and not when others wish it; indeed he should discourage everyone from giving him advice on any subject unless he asks for it. Nevertheless, he should certainly be a free asker-of questions, and afterward, about what was asked, a patient listener to the truth; moreover, if he becomes aware that anyone, for whatever reason, is not telling him the truth, he should become angry.

In closing, the realist sage remarks: For here is a general rule that never fails: that a leader who is not wise in his own right cannot be advised well, unless purely by chance he submitted himself to a single individual who governed him in all and who was a very wise man. In this case, he certainly could be, but it would not last long, because that governor in a short time would take his rule from him. But by seeking advice from more than one, a leader who is not wise will never have consistent advice, nor will he know how to make it consistent on his own; all of the counselors will think of their own interests; he will not know how to manage or understand them. And it is not possible to find counselors who are otherwise, for men always turn out badly for you unless by some necessity they are made to be good. And so it may be concluded that good advice, from whomever it may come, must originate from the wisdom of the leader and not the wisdom of the leader from good advisers.

Machiavelli in The Prince was describing politics in the Italian city states at about the same time the Philippines was being "discovered". His precepts for successful leadership then are eerily current for Filipinos nearly five hundred years later. Then as now, weak leaders in not-so-strong republics are preyed upon by overzealous advisers – those talented flaterrers who readily sacrifice the nation for their own, self-serving ends. Even in a weak republic, the truly strong leader must disdain those who can only excel in fabricating ready and stormy applause, most often at the expense of truth.