Ruminations on heresthetics and what it takes to get what you want.

Originally circulated on 15 May 2020

Hi fellow Ruminants & Groupies in Lock Down Level 4

Greetings from  day 49 of lock down. Over the past week I have received no worthy submissions for  Ruminant Pink Friday’s ™ although there are topicson the parking list. An article writtenby a non-Sasol friend, Ivor Sarikinsky, introduced me to the concept of heresthetics as a worthy topic for Ruminant Pink Friday’s ™. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2020-05-06-cigarettes-and-the-smoking-gun/. The term heresthetic was coined by the political scientist, William Riker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Riker

Heresthetic is defined as a political strategy by which a person or group sets or manipulates the context and structure of a decision-making process in order to win or be more likely to win.

Isaac Newton, one of the greatest scientists of all time famously said:

“I can calculate the movement of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of men”

The context in which he said this was in the creation and destruction of shareholder value in the South Sea bubble in which he lost a lot money. https://www.businessinsider.com/isaac-newton-and-the-south-sea-bubble-2013-4?IR=T. Isaac Newton did not understand heresthetics.

Politics and business are not necessarily scientific, logical or rational. These are not the principles you need to apply if you want to win and ensure the decisions you want and that benefit you are taken. In the corporate and business context the following heresthetic principles are very effective: https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/tag/heresthetics/

1. Make your preferred option or solution as easy to understand as possible.
2. Make other problems/ solutions difficult to process, such as by presenting them in the abstract and providing excessive detail.
3. Emphasize the high cognitive cost to the examination of all other options.
4. Experiment with choice-rule options that consolidate the vote for your preferred option while splitting the vote of others.
5. Design the comparison of a small number of options to make sure that yours is the most competitive.
6. Design the framing of choice (for example, is a vote primarily about the substantial issue or confidence in its proponents?).
7. Design the selection of criteria to evaluate options.
8. Conspire to make sure that the proponent of your preferred choice is seen as heroic (and the proponent of another choice as of flawed character and intellect).
9. Ensure that people make or vote for choices quickly, to ward off the possibility of further analysis and risk of losing control of the design of choice.
10. Make sure that you engage in these strategies without being detected or punished.

Unfortunately the importance of heresthetics has only dawned on me late in life. I have been too taken by science, rationality and logic but that only, at best, makes you a useful idiot in a large corporate. My advice to younger people is to study and hone heresthetical skills to get what you want. I would not advise this as a means to create shareholder value but as a way to advance yourself.

Please keep the submission ideas flowing.

Regards

Bruce