The cruder the manner in which power is exercised by those in authority, and the deeper the pattern of deference implanted in the minds of the powerless, the easier it is for the confidence trickster to mimic and manipulate the characteristics of oppression as he exercises the dark arts of fraud and theft. And who better placed to do that than those most familiar with how arbitrary power is exercised? When the confidence trickster’s mischief was perfectly executed in an ethically flawed dispensation it could, like a work of art, expose the underlying fault lines of colonialism by holding a mirror to the economy and society and revealing its many pressure points.

Lao Tsu in his Tao Te Ching shares an invaluable piece of wisdom: “The world is ruled by letting things take their course. It cannot be ruled by interfering.

As the former editor of the American Journal of Public Health observed in a piece summing up AA’s first seventy-five years: “From what looks like anarchy—traditions rather than rules, maximum local autonomy and independence, and absence of centralized or layered tiers of authority—emerges consistency and stability.” That’s the power of community.

Authoritarian regimes are being elected all over the world, and the present risk is that the histories of oppressed peoples will be driven further underground, despite - or dare one say, because of - the radical left.

As important as it is to build platforms on social issues, the bullying tactics of the left run the risk of alienating even fair-minded people. Imitation cannot win the day, and when intellectuals get praised for their ‘courage’ - that is, for merely saying what they think - then one realises that panic-driven pandering has become the new norm! In his inimitable style, it was Nietzsche who said, “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

Behavioral scientists have conducted hundreds of studies about the differences between powerful and powerless words and phrases. We are especially smitten with research led by Jonah Berger at the University of Pennsylvania and by our Stanford colleague Jennifer Aaker. We draw mostly on their work to generate five tips about the kind of talk that provokes people to act, persist, and develop imaginative solutions.