Conclusion

Abstract

While the messages that leaders deliver may seem straightforward, and with some justification viewed with suspicion, what they convey is usually familiar, but not simple. To sacrifice for an invisible concept such as an empire, as Plato well knew, is not a simple idea. Nonetheless, like those who pursue Fame’s favors in Chaucer’s poem, we may think we know what the apparently simple messages, emblems, and performances mean, especially since the kind of highly efficient, instantaneous communication that takes place in a theater also informs our leaders’ messages. There is something, moreover, about crowds of people coming together to listen to a ruler that in and of itself creates the best conditions for consensus. Consensus must still be won, but the stage is set for persuasion, and the audience generally is knowledgeable enough to realize that this is what their coming together is all about.