THE Sl'I.TA ,\D

THE VIZIER

A vizier had served his

master for some thirty years and was known

and admired for his loyalty, truthfulness,

and devotion to God.

His honesty, however, had made him many enemies in the court,

who spread stories of his duplicity and

perfidy. They worked

on the sultan day in and day out until he too

came to distrust the

innocent vizier and

finally ordered the man who had served him so

well to be put to death. In this realm, those

condemned to death

were tied up and thrown into the pen

where the sultan kept his fiercest hunting

dogs. The dogs would promptly tear the

victim to pieces. Before being thrown to

the dogs, however, the vizier asked for one last

request. "I would like ten days' respite," he

said, "so that I can pay my debts, collect any

money due to me, return items that people

have put in my care, and share out my goods among the members of my family and my chil-

dren and appoint a guardian for them. "

After receiving a guar- antee that the vizier

would not try to escape, the sultan granted this

request. The vizier hurried

home, collected one hundred gold pieces,

then paid a visit to the huntsman who looked

after the sultan:S

70 I LAW 9

TRANSGRESSION OF THE LAW In 131 B.C., the Roman consul Publius Crassus Dives Mucianus, laying siege to the Greek town of Pergamus, found himself in need of a battering ram to force through the town's walls. He had seen a couple of hefty ship's masts in a shipyard in Athens a few days before, and he ordered that the larger of these be sent to him immediately. The military engineer in Athens who received the order felt certain that the consul really wanted the smaller of the masts. He argued endlessly with the soldiers who delivered the request: The smaller mast, he told them, was much better suited to the task. And indeed it would be easier to transport.

The soldiers warned the engineer that their master was not a man to

argue with, but he insisted that the smaller mast would be the only one that would work with a machine that he was constructing to go with it. He drew diagram after diagram, and went so far as to say that he was the expert and they had no clue what they were talking about. The soldiers knew their leader and at last convinced the engineer that it would be better to swallow his expertise and obey.

After they left, though, the engineer thought about it some more. What was the point, he asked himself, in obeying an order that would lead to fail- ure? And so he sent the smaller mast, confident that the consul would see how much more effective it was and reward him justly.

When the smaller mast arrived, Mucianus asked his soldiers for an ex- planation. They described to him how the engineer had argued endlessly for the smaller mast, but had finally promised to send the larger one. Mu- cianus went into a rage. He could not concentrate on the siege, or consider the importance of breaching the walls before the town received reinforce- ments. All he could think about was the impudent engineer, whom he or- dered to be brought to him immediately.

Arriving a few days later, the engineer gladly explained to the consul, one more time, the reasons for the smaller mast. He went on and on, using the same arguments he had made with the soldiers. He said it was wise to listen to experts in these matters, and if the attack was only tried with the battering ram he had sent, the consul would not regret it. Mucianus let him finish, then had him stripped naked before_the soldiers and flogged and scourged with rods until he died.

Interpretation The engineer, whose name has not been recorded by history, had spent his life designing masts and pillars, and was respected as the finest engineer in a city that had excelled in the science. He knew that he was right. A smaller ram would allow more speed and carry more force. Larger is not necessar- ily better. Of course the consul would see his logic, and would eventUally understand that science is neutral and reason superior. How could the con- sul possibly persist in his ignorance if the engineer showed him detailed di- agrams and explained the theories behind his advice?

The military engineer was the quintessence of the Arguer, a type found everywhere among us. The Arguer does not understand that words

are never neutral, and that by arguing with a superior he impugns the intel- ligence of one more powerful than he. He also has no awareness of the per- son he is dealing with. Since each man believes that he is right, and words will rarely convince him otherwise, the arguer's reasoning falls on deaf ears. When cornered, he only argues more, digging his own grave. Once he has made the other person feel insecure and inferior in his beliefs, the eloquence of Socrates could not save the situation.

It is not simply a question of avoiding an argument with those who stand above you. We all believe we are masters in the realm of opinions and reasoning. You must be careful, then: Learn to demonstrate the cor- rectness of your ideaS indirectly.

OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW

In 1502, in Florence, Italy, an enormous block of marble stood in the works department of the church of Santa Maria del Fiore. It had once been a magnificent piece of raw stone, but an unskillful sculptor had mistakenly bored a hole through it where there should have been a figure's legs, gen- erally mutilating it. Piero Soderini, Florence's mayor, had contemplated trying to save the block by commissioning Leonardo da Vmci to work on it, or some other master, but had given up, since everyone agreed that the stone had been ruined. So, despite the money that had been wasted on it, it gathered dust in the dark halls of the church.

This was where things stood until some Florentine friends of the great Michelangelo decided to write to the artist, then living in Rome. He alone, they said, could do something with the marble, which was still magnificent raw material. Michelangelo traveled to Florence, examined the stone, and came to the conclusion that he could in fact carve a fine figure from it, by adapting the pose to the way the rock had been mutilated. Soderini argued that this was a waste of time-nobody could salvage such a disaster-but he finally agreed to let the artist work on it. Michelangelo decided he would depict a young David, sling in hand.

Weeks later, as Michelangelo was putting the final touches on the statue, Soderini entered the studio. Fancying himself a bit of a connoisseur, he/studied the huge work, and told Michelangelo that while he thought it was magnificent, the nose, he judged, was too big. Michelangelo realized that Soderini was standing in a place right under the giant figure and did not have the proper perspective. Without a word, he gestured for Soderini to follow him up the scaffolding. Reaching the nose, he picked up his chisel, as well as a bit of marble dust that lay on the planks. With Soderini just a few feet below him on the scaffolding, Michelangelo started to tap lightly with the chisel, letting the bits of dust he had gathered in his hand to fall little by little. He actually did nothing to change the nose, but gave every appearance of working on it. Mer a few minutes of this charade he stood aside: "Look at it now." "I like it better," replied Soderini, "you've made it come alive."

dogs. He offered this man the one hundred

gold pieces and said, "Let me look after the dogs for ten days." The huntsman agreed, and

for the next ten days the vizier cared for the beasts with great atten-

tion, grooming them well and feeding them handsomely. By the end

of the ten days they were eating out of his hand.

On the eleventh day the vizier was called before

the sultan, the charges were repeated, and the sultan watched as the

vizier was tied up and thrown to the dogs. Yet when the beasts saw

him, they ran up to him with wagging tails. They

nibbled affectionately at his shoulders and

began playing with him. The sultan and the other wimesses were

amazed, and the sultan

asked the vizier why the dogs had spared his life. The vizier replied, "[ have looked after these dogs for ten days. The sultan has seen the

result for himself [ have looked after you for thirty years, and what is the result? [ am condemned to death on

the strength of accusa- tions brought by my enemies." The sultan blushed with shame.

He not only pardoned

the vizier but gave him a fine set of clothes and handed over to him the men who had slandered

his reputation. The noble vizier set them free and continued to treat them with kindness.

THE SUBTLE RUSE: THE BOOK OF ARABIC WISDOM AND GUILE. THIRTEENTH CENTURY

LAW 9 I 71

–

THEWORKS OF AMASIS When Apries had been

deposed in the way I have described, Amasis came to the throne. He

belonged to the district of Sais and was a

native of the town called Siuph. At first

the Egyptians were inclined to be contemp-

tuous, and did not

think much of him

because of his humble and undistinguished

origin; but later on he

cleverly brought them

to heel, without having recourse to harsh

measures.

Amongst his innumer- able treasures, he had a

gold footbath, which he and his guests used on occasion to wash their

feet in. This he broke up, and with the mate- rial had a statue made

to one of the gods, which he then set up in

what he thought the most suitable spot in

the city. The Egyptians constantly coming

upon the statue, treated it with profound rever-

ence, and as soon as

Amasis heard of the

effect it had upon them, he called a meeting and

revealed the fact that the deeply revered

statue was once a foot-

bath, which they washed their feet and

pissed and vomited in.

He went on to say that his own case was much

the same, in that once he had been only an ordinary person and

was now their king; so

that just as they had come to revere the

transformed footbath,

so they had better pay

72 ! LAW 9

Interpretation

Michelangelo knew that by changing the shape of the nose he might ruin the entire sculpture. Yet Soderini was a patron who prided himself on his aesthetic judgment. To offend such a man by arguing would not only gain Michelangelo nothing, it would put future commissions in jeopardy. Michelangelo was too clever to argue. His solution was to change Soderini's perspective (literally bringing him closer to the nose) without making him realize that this was the cause of his misperception.

Fortunately for posterity, Michelangelo found a way to keep the per- fection of the statue intact while at the same time making Soderini believe he had improved it. Such is the double power of winning through actions rather than argument: No one is offended, and your point is proven.

KEYS TO POWER

In the realm of power you must learn to judge your moves by their long- term effects on other people. The problem in trying to prove a point or gain a victory through argument is that in the end you can never be certain how it affects the people you're arguing with: They may appear to agree with you politely, but inside they may res~nt you. Or perhaps something you said inadvertently even offended them-words have that insidious ability to be interpreted according to the other person's mood and insecuri- ties. Even the best argument has no solid foundation, for we have all come to distrust the slippery nature of words. And days after agreeing with some- one, we often revert to our old opinion out of sheer habit.

Understand this: Words are a dime a dozen. Everyone knows that in the heat of an argument, we will all say anything to support our cause. We will quote the Bible, refer to unverifiable statistics. Who can be persuaded by bags of air like that? Action and demonstration are much more power- ful and meaningful. They are there, before our eyes, for us to see– "Yes, now the statue's nose does look just right." There are no offensive words, no possibility of misinterpretation. No one can argue with a demonstrated proof. As Baltasar Gracian remarks, "The truth is generally seen, rarely heard."

Sir Christopher Wren was England's version of the Renaissance man. He had mastered the sciences of mathematics, astronomy, physics, and physiology. Yet during his extremely long career as England's most cele- brated architect he was often told by his patrons to make impractical changes in his designs. Never once did he argue or offend. He had other ways of proving his point.

In 1688 Wren designed a magnificent town hall for the city of West- minster. The mayor, however, was not satisfied; in fact he was nervous. He told Wren he was afraid the second floor was not secure, and that it could all come crashing down on his office on the first floor. He demanded that Wren add two stone columns for extra support. Wren, the consummate en- gineer, knew that these columns would serve no purpose, and that the

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mayor's fears were baseless. But build them he did, and the mayor was grateful. It was only years later that workmen on a high scaffold saw that the columns stopped just short of the ceiling.

They were dummies. But both men got what they wanted: The mayor could relax, and Wren knew posterity would understand that his original design worked and the columns were unnecessary.

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