Truth and Power By Larry Lessig

From Larry Lessig

https://medium.lessig.org/the-age-of-the-fantasist-80b86f428d8f

“After law school, I was among the very lucky to clerk for Judge Richard Posner of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. Posner is perhaps the most influential legal academic ever, birthing the law and economics movement in America. He was among the most prolific federal judges. But most important for those of us who worked for him was how he worked: Unlike many, maybe most, judges, Posner wrote his own opinions. He hired clerks to argue against the opinions he wrote.

After I left that clerkship, I continued to give Posner comments on his writing. One summer, in the days before email, I was teaching in Budapest. Posner had sent me a draft of an upcoming book. We had an increasingly heated exchange over a number of days, and finally, one evening, I faxed a letter I quickly regretted. It was too critical, and unfairly so. The next morning, I sent an apology. I had “gone too far,” I told him. His response was among the most important lessons I have ever learned: I could never “go too far,” he wrote me. “I am surrounded by sycophants.” The last thing he needed, he told me in emphatic terms, was for me, or anyone, to pull punches.

In my world, Posner was a very powerful figure. Yet he demonstrated how power was best deployed. His strength depended upon his being challenged. His arguments were stronger when they had been challenged. He therefore encouraged that challenge — always.

The world of powerful people is divided between those who are like Posner and those who are not. Those who are like Posner surround themselves with people who feel entitled to criticize. They encourage that criticism. Doris Kearns Goodwin rendered Lincoln as the paradigmatic anti-sycophantic leader. He built his cabinet, as the title of her book puts it, to be a “team of rivals,” which would assure that his every decision would be as strongly tested as it could be, by strong opponents, who were nonetheless loyal to his ultimate goal.”

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“Sam Bankman-Fried “I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that. I think, if you wrote a book, you fucked up, and it should have been a six-paragraph blog post.”

From A Few Good Men