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(You're Too Kind) A Brief History of Flattery

Richard Stengel

Successful people are most vulnerable to flattery - they see any praise as shrewd judgement. People who do not suffer fools gladly suffer flatterers.

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Flattery works because we're eager to believe what we want to believe - we all want to be liked, we all want to be appreciated

Flattery almost always hits its target because the target rises to meet it

We don't even worry about it any more - everyone recognises that 'spin' a part of our lives. Hegel used term 'heroism of flattery' where the individual recognises the falseness of society and bravely understands that must play along to get along.

And we no longer have a confident inner moral compass - we form our opinion of ourselves based on what others think of us

All animals Machiavellian - chimps will shag a female from the alpha male's harem on the sly, then go and groom the alpha male. Males vying for power will go out of their way to groom high ranking females and play with their babies, just like human politicians

For chimps the ultimate flattery is being allowed to fondle the alpha male's scrotum. He is saying 'I trust you' the other is saying 'I will do anything for you'

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Reputation Control .......................................................................................Client William Flew