Flattery will get you everywhere, as the sycophants that surround Donald Trump, Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping know. Which makes Elon Musk’s defection rather interesting. Trump’s policies meant that Musk simply could not flatter him any more just to satisfy his inexhaustible self-love, which, says the Greek essayist, biographer and diplomat Plutarch (d. c. ad 120), is what gives the kolax (‘flatterer’) his foothold: the person he wishes to flatter, his victim, will be only too happy for the kolax to endlessly proclaim his qualities and abilities.
Naturally, the kolax does not pay attention to poor, obscure or unimportant persons – where is the gain in that? – but only to those with power, engaged in great affairs. Since friendship is cemented by a likeness of pursuits and habits, and since delight in the same things brings people together in the first place, the kolax adjusts and shapes himself, as though he were so much inert matter, to adapt to the character of his victim. Like a cuttlefish which changes its colour, texture and shape at will, the kolax identifies his victim’s interests and, abandoning his own feelings, captures like a mirror the image of his victim. People (it is said, for example) used to copy Plato’s stoop, Aristotle’s lisp and Alexander the Great’s twisted neck.
Observe also the kolax taking a good seat at the theatre in order to give it up to his victim; or falling silent at a debate to allow his victim to speak and to agree with him; or proclaiming his victim not just wealthy and blessed but also supreme in intelligence, technical skill and every excellence. Watch the kolax disapprove of the actions of those whom his victim dislikes, while commending everything that pleases him. The kolax will show that his victim’s tastes are excellent by imitating them, and that his prowess is unrivalled by letting himself be outdone. Like water that is poured into one receptacle after another, the kolax is constantly on the move, changing from shape to shape in tune with his victim.
But at least Musk knows he will live to fight another day, unlike the terrified flatterers of the others in the list above.
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