The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

particularly if we feel dependent on them and vulnerable.
Part of the reason for this essential ambivalence is that strong, pure
emotions are frightening. They represent a momentary loss of control.
They seem to negate our willpower. We unconsciously balance them
with contrary or conflicting emotions. And part of it stems from the
fact that our moods are continually shifting and overlapping. Whatever
the cause, we are not aware of our own ambivalence because
contemplating the complexity of our emotions is baffling, and we
prefer to rely on simple explanations for who we are and what we are
feeling. We do the same with the people around us, reducing our
interpretations of their feelings to something simple and digestible. It
would take effort, and much honesty on our part, to catch our own
underlying ambivalence in action.
Nowhere is this fundamental aspect of human nature more evident
than in our relationship toward leaders, whom we unconsciously
associate with parental figures. This ambivalence toward leaders
operates in the following way.
On the one hand, we intuitively recognize the need for leaders. In
any group, people have their narrow agendas and competing interests.
The members feel insecure about their own position and work to
secure it. Without leaders who stand above these competing interests
and who see the larger picture, the group would be in trouble. Hard
decisions would never be made. No one would be guiding the ship.
Therefore, we crave leadership and unconsciously feel disoriented,
even hysterical, without someone fulfilling this role.
On the other hand, we also tend to fear and even despise those who
are above us. We fear that those in power will be tempted to use the
privileges of their position to accumulate more power and enrich
themselves, a common enough occurrence. We are also willful
creatures. We don’t feel comfortable with the inferiority and
dependence that comes with serving under a leader. We want to

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exercise our own will and feel our autonomy. We secretly envy the
recognition and privileges that leaders possess. This essential
ambivalence tips toward the negative when leaders show signs of
abuse, insensitivity, or incompetence. No matter how powerful the
leaders, no matter how much we might admire them, below the surface
sits this ambivalence, and it makes people’s loyalties notoriously fickle
and volatile.
Those in power will tend to notice only the smiles of their
employees and the applause they receive at meetings, and they will
mistake such support for reality. They do not realize that people almost
always show such deference to those above them, because their
personal fate is in the hands of such leaders and they cannot afford to
show their true feelings. And so leaders are rarely aware of the
underlying ambivalence that is there even when things are going well.
If leaders make some mistakes, or if their power seems shaky,
suddenly they will see the mistrust and loss of respect that had been
invisibly building up, as the members of the group or the public turn
on them with an intensity that is surprising and shocking. Look at the
news to see how quickly leaders in any field can lose support and
respect, and how quickly they are judged by their latest success or
failure.
We might be tempted to believe that such fickleness is more of a
modern phenomenon, a product of the fiercely democratic times we
live in. After all, our ancestors were much more obedient than we
moderns, or so we think. But this was hardly the case. Far back in time,
among indigenous cultures and early civilizations, once-revered chiefs
and kings were routinely put to death if they showed signs of aging or
weakness; or if they lost a battle; or if a sudden drought occurred,
meaning the gods no longer blessed them; or if they were seen as
favoring their own clan at the expense of the group. These executions
were moments of great celebration, a time to release all of the pent-up
hostility toward leaders. (See The Golden Bough, by James Frazer, for
innumerable examples of this.)
Perhaps unconsciously our ancestors feared any one individual
lasting long in power, because they sensed the corrupting aspect of
power; and with someone new and fresh, they could control him
better. In any case, underneath their obedience lay tremendous
wariness. We may not execute our chiefs anymore, but we do so
symbolically in our elections and in the media, taking joy in witnessing

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the ritualistic fall of the powerful. We may not blame them for a lack of
rainfall, but we will blame them for any downturn in the economy,
even though most of what happens in the economy is beyond their
control. As with the rainfall, they seem to have lost the blessings of
good fortune, of the gods. When it comes to our ambivalence and
mistrust, we have not changed as much as we think.
Throughout history, however, certain notable leaders have been
able to erect a bulwark against this volatility, to earn a type of solid
respect and support that allowed them to accomplish great things over
time. We think of Moses, or the ancient Indian emperor Asoka, or
Pericles (see chapter 1), or the Roman general Scipio Africanus, or
Queen Elizabeth I. In more modern times we can think of Abraham
Lincoln, or Martin Luther King Jr., or Warren Buffett, or Angela
Merkel, or Steve Jobs. We shall call such power authority, reverting to
the original significance of the word, which comes from the Latin