Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 45

[cahn]

Unfortunately, there was then at Berlin a King who pursued one policy only, who deceived his enemies, but not his servants, and who lied without scruple, but never without necessity.

(from The King's Secret - by Duke de Broglie, grand-nephew of the subject of the book, Comte de Broglie, and grandfather of the physicist) )

Comments

Re: August III: This is how you lose the PR war

[cahn]

I am visible doing kingly things, making sure everyone follows the rituals and isn't overly familiar with me, and making sure everyone knows I am a king making kingly decisions."

Fritz: I'm a workaholic and everyone knows it! Also, check out the results.

*nods* This checks out. I feel like, royalty or not, there are people who enjoy showing off in front of a crowd, people who have enough of a performance persona and a desire that everyone know the effort they're putting in that they make sure it's known, and people who really don't have that desire (and often as a result people don't know the effort they're putting in). Of course also people can be different about this with different facets of their personality (I can definitely be both the second and the third depending on what kind of thing we're talking about), but when you're a king there's one facet that is kind of the big one...

an air of embarrassment accompanies all his actions, and, in order to conceal this embarrassment he has recourse to a very disagreeable forced smile.

Aw! This seems rather perceptive, really.