Flattery

Ahankar is the last of the five and the hardest to see, because it feels like being right. The English on the door is flattery. The courtier does not need to deceive you. He only needs to agree with you, again and again, until you stop checking.

The tale

Ram Rai was sent by his father, Guru Har Rai, to Aurangzeb’s court. The emperor objected to a line of Guru Nanak’s in Asa di Var, at Ang 466, about the clay of a Muslim’s grave going into the potter’s clay. Ram Rai said it was a scribal error and altered a word to please the emperor. His father refused to see him again. The point is not that Ram Rai lied. It is that the favor of power invited him to edit the truth a little, and he did.

On the courtier’s side, the Indic original is Victor the jackal. He did not lie about the world. He told each of two friends what the other was supposedly plotting, and he did it to win back his own place.

The collective version is the Lahore Durbar, where a court of factions each telling the sovereign what suited them consumed a state in ten years. We note the Dogras’ role is contested and we do not assign it.

The modern court

• The sycophant. An employee, partner or friend whose position depends on your approval.
• Audience capture. A following that rewards you for saying more of what it already believes, until you cannot say anything else.
• The guru with a course. A person whose business is your sense of being exceptional.
• The machine that agrees. An AI tool that tells you the idea is brilliant, the draft is excellent, and the plan is sound. This is a courtier’s vice, and it is built in. Treat any system that agrees with you reliably as an unreliable adviser.

The diagnosis

Flattery is the lever that works on those who believe they are immune to the others. It does not offer anything. It confirms. And it works precisely when you have succeeded, because by then you have the fewest people left who will tell you no.

Vidura’s warning to Dhritarashtra includes flatterers among the four kinds of counselor a king should avoid. His statement that those who speak only pleasing words are many, and those who will say and hear unwelcome counsel are rare, is the best single description of the problem.

The minister’s counsel

Seek the minister who says no. Pay for it if you have to. A reviewer, a mentor, a friend with a record of telling you what you did not want to hear. The test is not whether they agree with you. It is whether they ever have not.

Ask a machine to attack, not to approve. If you use an AI tool, ask it for the strongest case against your plan, not whether the plan is good. Treat its praise as noise.

Watch who profits from your confidence. The person who gains most from your belief in yourself is the one whose advice to discount.

Do not edit the truth to keep a patron. Ram Rai’s mistake was small, one word, and it was complete. If you notice yourself rephrasing the truth to keep someone’s good opinion, notice what the edit costs you.

Three questions

1. Who around me is allowed to tell me no, and when did they last?
2. Does anyone profit from my seeing myself this way?
3. What is the strongest case that I am wrong?