4 ms·

What striking to me, however certainly expected, is all the sycophantic drivel heaped onto a powerful person. "You looked fabulous", "we were discussing how in

by dpweb 11y ago

What striking to me, however certainly expected, is all the sycophantic drivel heaped onto a powerful person. "You looked fabulous", "we were discussing how incredible you are". Perhaps aides think somehow they are being supportive, but if I were that powerful person, I believe I would rather just a few people I trust to tell me when I'm effing up - than everyone telling me how fantastic I am.

ethbro 11y ago
The State Department is a slow organization with internal careers. I feel like you see the same in a lot of other career, conservative, small number at the top, higher payoff if you get there fields (legal, medical, academia, finance). The amount of effort required to be sycophantic is minor in relation to the past 10+ years of work that your superior could torpedo on a whim.
- scottkduncan 11y ago
  Except that most of the people communicating directly with Secretary Clinton would have been political appointees who would have joined the organization from the outside. Don't get me wrong, it's still a hierarchical, traditional organization.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    Political appointees' careers are even more dependent on the whin of their superiors than career civil servants.
cubano 11y ago
In lieu of actual achievement and hard work, ass-kissing such as this is what political connection selects for, so it is hardly surprising to me that these emails are littered with such "sycophantic drivel."
samstave 11y ago
Apply this to all her email: https://sense2vec.spacy.io/ https://sense2vec.spacy.io/
PavlovsCat 11y ago
> Perhaps aides think somehow they are being supportive, but if I were that powerful person, I believe I would rather just a few people I trust to tell me when I'm effing up - than everyone telling me how fantastic I am. And if you were powerful, and wanted to, you would likely be able to find ways to surround yourself with such people. But I think often enough, the people who want power don't want it because they're very well-centered, and I think it's fair to assume that politicians and other people mostly select the nature (which can mean what those really think and/or what they claim they think) of their "underlings" by the signals they send, the incentives they give, by whom they hire or fire. In other words, the dog is probably wagging the tail, not the other way around. I could be wrong, I don't know this woman and don't follow US politics that closely, but just from random things like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dY77j6uBHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dY77j6uBHI I would call it a somewhat educated guess. Some people don't want to know the truth about themselves, that's the exact opposite of their mission in life. By which I don't mean to bash Clinton in particular, the list of big time politicians I wouldn't suspect this about would be very short and hard to come up with.
ForHackernews 11y ago
There's a strong gendered component to this, one which men used to working for male bosses may be unfamiliar with: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/11/hillary_clinton_emails_why_do_women_pay_each_other_so_many_compliments.html http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/11/hilla...
kaitai 11y ago
I work with some colleagues who use this kind of conversation. Full disclosure: I am a female, they are also female. They wouldn't talk to you like that -- it's a female-female communication style with a lot of subtext, common in parts of corporate America as well. The majority (by far!) of my colleagues are male, and part of the subtext and context of this type of conversation is (1) to comment on things guys "can't" comment on, like "did I wear the appropriate jewelry or footwear for this event to project the social and intellectual persona that I'm trying to project", and (2) to combat the everyday little degradations you encounter, like someone at the registration table not registering you because they figured you're a girlfriend not a real participant. Women who are trying to maintain and accumulate power know that they can support each other in maintaining a stance of confidence rather than acceptance. Being primarily socialized into a stance of acceptance due to my historically all-male and socially inept professional circles, I was way confused when I got a female boss who started saying nice things about/to me. It is true that I do good things at work, although I don't manage to find the right shoes to project being corporate -- but I've never had anyone say anything about either of those things! Ever! It's a reasonable management tool in some ways. My male bosses asked me (forced me?) to do my job and also take care of "women things" (recruitment and retention of women and minorities) without ever saying anything nice or giving me any credit, so I quit doing most of that. Altruism has limits that are often reached at the bank account. But now I have a boss who views outreach as a positive and actually says nice things ("you're incredible! I'm amazed at how much you do!" etc) so yep, I'm more likely to do it. And it is good for my organization.
- douche 11y ago
  Interesting perspective. Personally, I would find effusive praise of that kind profoundly weird, and uncomfortable, because it doesn't fit into the framework of mostly male-male communication I'm used to(relatively traditional, tinged with some ex-military vibes). In large part, the sign of doing a good job is the absence of criticism. Since you could almost always improve on your performance, there tends to always be some level of criticism. Maybe I'm weird, but external validation doesn't really push any of my buttons. If you think I really did a great job, give me a bonus, or an extra day or two of vacation. Otherwise, I've got work to do.
dpweb 11y ago
only mean to point out sycophancy and groupthink - no disrespect towards HRC intended

by dpweb 11y ago

ethbro 11y ago

The State Department is a slow organization with internal careers. I feel like you see the same in a lot of other career, conservative, small number at the top, higher payoff if you get there fields (legal, medical, academia, finance). The amount of effort required to be sycophantic is minor in relation to the past 10+ years of work that your superior could torpedo on a whim.

scottkduncan 11y ago
Except that most of the people communicating directly with Secretary Clinton would have been political appointees who would have joined the organization from the outside. Don't get me wrong, it's still a hierarchical, traditional organization.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Political appointees' careers are even more dependent on the whin of their superiors than career civil servants.

cubano 11y ago

In lieu of actual achievement and hard work, ass-kissing such as this is what political connection selects for, so it is hardly surprising to me that these emails are littered with such "sycophantic drivel."

samstave 11y ago

Apply this to all her email: https://sense2vec.spacy.io/ https://sense2vec.spacy.io/

PavlovsCat 11y ago

> Perhaps aides think somehow they are being supportive, but if I were that powerful person, I believe I would rather just a few people I trust to tell me when I'm effing up - than everyone telling me how fantastic I am. And if you were powerful, and wanted to, you would likely be able to find ways to surround yourself with such people. But I think often enough, the people who want power don't want it because they're very well-centered, and I think it's fair to assume that politicians and other people mostly select the nature (which can mean what those really think and/or what they claim they think) of their "underlings" by the signals they send, the incentives they give, by whom they hire or fire. In other words, the dog is probably wagging the tail, not the other way around. I could be wrong, I don't know this woman and don't follow US politics that closely, but just from random things like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dY77j6uBHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dY77j6uBHI I would call it a somewhat educated guess. Some people don't want to know the truth about themselves, that's the exact opposite of their mission in life. By which I don't mean to bash Clinton in particular, the list of big time politicians I wouldn't suspect this about would be very short and hard to come up with.

ForHackernews 11y ago

There's a strong gendered component to this, one which men used to working for male bosses may be unfamiliar with: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/11/hillary_clinton_emails_why_do_women_pay_each_other_so_many_compliments.html http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/11/hilla...

kaitai 11y ago

I work with some colleagues who use this kind of conversation. Full disclosure: I am a female, they are also female. They wouldn't talk to you like that -- it's a female-female communication style with a lot of subtext, common in parts of corporate America as well. The majority (by far!) of my colleagues are male, and part of the subtext and context of this type of conversation is (1) to comment on things guys "can't" comment on, like "did I wear the appropriate jewelry or footwear for this event to project the social and intellectual persona that I'm trying to project", and (2) to combat the everyday little degradations you encounter, like someone at the registration table not registering you because they figured you're a girlfriend not a real participant. Women who are trying to maintain and accumulate power know that they can support each other in maintaining a stance of confidence rather than acceptance. Being primarily socialized into a stance of acceptance due to my historically all-male and socially inept professional circles, I was way confused when I got a female boss who started saying nice things about/to me. It is true that I do good things at work, although I don't manage to find the right shoes to project being corporate -- but I've never had anyone say anything about either of those things! Ever! It's a reasonable management tool in some ways. My male bosses asked me (forced me?) to do my job and also take care of "women things" (recruitment and retention of women and minorities) without ever saying anything nice or giving me any credit, so I quit doing most of that. Altruism has limits that are often reached at the bank account. But now I have a boss who views outreach as a positive and actually says nice things ("you're incredible! I'm amazed at how much you do!" etc) so yep, I'm more likely to do it. And it is good for my organization.

douche 11y ago
Interesting perspective. Personally, I would find effusive praise of that kind profoundly weird, and uncomfortable, because it doesn't fit into the framework of mostly male-male communication I'm used to(relatively traditional, tinged with some ex-military vibes). In large part, the sign of doing a good job is the absence of criticism. Since you could almost always improve on your performance, there tends to always be some level of criticism. Maybe I'm weird, but external validation doesn't really push any of my buttons. If you think I really did a great job, give me a bonus, or an extra day or two of vacation. Otherwise, I've got work to do.

dpweb 11y ago

only mean to point out sycophancy and groupthink - no disrespect towards HRC intended