A few years ago I read an article in The Evening Standard.
It was about seven masochists and seven sadists.
All men, they would meet up every so often for group sex sessions.
The sadists would perform various brutal acts on the masochists.
One I particularly remember, was the sadists would nail the masochists’ scrotums to planks of wood.
Fair enough.
Not my cup of tea, but they all enjoyed it.
No harm done.
Except they were all arrested and taken to court.
The sadists were charged with GBH (causing grievous bodily harm).
The masochists were charged with ‘accessory before and after the fact’.
Because the masochists were assisting the sadists in breaking the law.
The sadists got prison, and the masochists got probation.
Even though the masochists testified in court that they were willing participants.
They enjoyed it, they even sought it.
So how could it be an assault?
Personally I take the view that anything’s okay as long as you fulfil three criteria.
It’s got to be between Consenting. Adults. In Private.
If you tick those three boxes, whatever you do is no one else’s business.
It didn’t matter.
Under the strict interpretation of the law what the sadists had done was an assault.
Damage to someone else’s physical person.
Whether the other person wanted it, enjoyed it, whatever.
It didn’t matter.
They deliberately broke the law, ‘with malice aforethought’.
There was no room for ‘extenuating circumstances’.
No room for feelings.
No room for judgement.
No room for interpretation.
Just the simple literal application of the rules.
This is actually and deliberately quite thoughtless.
A process without intuitive leaps.
Certainly a process without any creativity.
It doesn’t leave the possibility open to find a better solution.
All you get is the implementation of the same rules as everyone else.
But then that’s the idea of the law.
It’s supposed to be fair to everyone.
Regardless of social-class, age, sexual-preference, religious-persuasion, race, whatever.
That’s why Justice, the statue on top of the Old Bailey, wears a blindfold.
To signify implementing the rules regardless.
But, as we’ve just seen, even for the law it’s not always right.
How can it possibly be a good general business principal?
Especially in our business.
Blindly imposing the rules is the opposite of what we do.
The opposite of creativity.
Where we need to think outside the rules.
To take unfair advantage.
We want something the competition can’t see coming.
Something they won’t expect.
And we won’t get that by following the same rules as them.
We get that by an intuitive leap.
A leap which won’t show up to people who can only read a balance sheet.
A balance sheet only shows you how things are after they’ve happened.
A balance sheet can’t show you something before it’s happened.
You need vision for that.
You need judgement.
You need to feel what’s going to work.
Then after it’s worked, everyone can see it.
Then they can copy it, and enter it on the balance sheet.
But they couldn’t do that beforehand.
Because you can’t see the future before it’s happened.
So you can’t measure it.
You can’t put an exact value on it.
You can only do that afterwards.
As Kierkegaard said, “Life can only be understood backwards. Unfortunately it must be lived forwards,”
That takes an intuitive leap.
That takes creativity.
As Steve Jobs said, “It’s not the public’s job to know what they’re going to want. It’s my job to know what they’re going to want.”
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Off piste.
I’ve just read your other blog. They always seem to come out at the same time. Do you write them at the same time?
I only ask because I read two DT posts then I don’t get anything for a few days. Could you alternate the days you post each one, then we could all have a daily Dave rather than a big hit followed a longer wait.
I seem unable to leave comments on the other one. I’ve tried and failed many times, so perhaps this is more appropriate to your BR post.
I’m letting you know how I’d like to use your output.
Do others agree?
Hi Ben,
You’re right, that makes more sense than the way I’m currently doing it.
Maybe I’ll try Monday and Wednesday here, and Tuesday and Friday there.
I figured there wouldn’t be much overlap, because I don’t think people from abroad can get onto the Campaign/Brand Republic blog.
Also I’ll tell the other blog you had trouble leaving a comment.
Thanks Ben.
Dave,
I would imagine you consider the U.S. “abroad,”
and I read both blogs regularly.
So there.
Ciaran
Hi Ciaran,
I do indeed consider the US as abroad.
In some cases even as a broad.
And I’m glad they can get both blogs in the colonies.
Thanks a lot for letting me know.
Did anyone ask the nails how they felt about it?
Were they sent down as an accomplice to the crime?
OK. I’m a pedant. But this matters. Justice, on top of the Old Bailey, does not wear a blindfold. How could she? If she was blind, she wouldn’t be paying attention. Wouldn’t be noticing all the details. How would that serve the cause of justice? How could she fairly, and with justice, be assessing the evidence before then weighing it on her scales?
Next time you’re in the area, take a look. Please. Or just Google it. Or try this link: http://www.artofthestate.co.uk/london_photos/statue_of_justice.htm
Thanks!
Hi Caroline,
I didn’t realise it but there are two views on whether Justice should be blindfolded (Blind Justice).
You can find them both here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_justice_(concept)#Blindfold
Rather than a blindfold, maybe she should be accompanied by a little statue of a man with a bag on his head - though this might look like an act of sadism
Hi Dave.
I’m reminded of Edward de Bono - “It’s sometimes necessary to get to the top of the mountain in order to discover the shortest way up.”
If Steve Jobs did say “It’s not the public’s job to know what they’re going to want. It’s my job to know what they’re going to want.”
It sounds like he was inspired by the late founder and Chairman of Sony, Akio Morita.
When talking on the launch of the Walkman, he said that a company whose strength lies in innovation does not wait for consumers to tell it what they want.
Quoted with saying, “We don’t ask consumers what they want. They don’t know. Instead we apply out brain power to what they need, and will want, and make sure we’re there, ready.” - Akio Moriata.
He’s also quoted with, “The public does not know what is possible, but we do.” - Akio Morita.
Made in Japan - Akio Morita
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=0525244654
Possibly one for your Autobiography list. I’m tempted myself.
Hi James,
Akio Morita is another hero of mine.
Like Jobs he would lead the consumer rather than follow.
So I’m sure you’re right, the quote could equally have been attributed to either.
I once had a client who nailed my scrotum to a plank. He’s still a free man. There’s no justice.
Got any pictures?
Ciaran McCabe
Didn’t Henry Ford say that if he’d asked the public what they wanted, they’d have replied ‘A faster horse’?
One thing that I remember from the masochist/sadist triel is that none of the wives of the scrotum-damaged husbands noticed anything different!
Have a thought for the bag of nails.
There they were innocently minding their own business in a DIY store.
Next minute some freak comes in, separates them all up,
bashes them screaming one by one over the head,
and leaves them festering in someone elses body fluids.
That’s a crime.
Some of them will have ended up permanently damaged or permanently bent.
There’s no such thing as justice.
How can there be when every lawful punishment is based on a response to a crime?
I heard it reported recently:
There are 3 million American citizens locked-up in The States as we speak.
Life can only be understood backwards makes a lot of sense Dave.
See Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment.
Hi Tom,
That Henry Ford quote is another of my favourites.
Also it’s great that you remember the masochists/sadists trial.
Otherwise sometimes people might think I’m making it up.
Kevin,
I will check out the Zimbardo experiment.
Mending their own business, surely?
That Steve Jobs quote reminds of an exchange between characters on the tv series Seinfeld.
Why are they watching?
‘Cos it’s on television!
Not yet it isn’t.
‘Even a good day in advertising involves a series of kicks to the nuts’. Alex Bogusky
Maybe we have something in common with those masochists and sadists!
Ciaran McCabe sent me this (via “Living Brands”)
http://jonhoward.typepad.com/livingbrands/
GIVE PEOLE WHAT THEY WANT TO FEEL
Some views on creative development from Pixar’s Andrew Stanton, director of Finding Nemo and Wall.E…
“I am a firm believer that you can’t take it literally when audiences tell you what they want. Our job as storytellers is to know what the audience wants before they do. So an audience member will typically tell you ‘well what I want is…’ and they are just going to use examples of what they’ve seen before. You can’t take that at face value. What they are really saying is ‘I want to feel as great as I did the last time I had a good time at a film, but in a new way. But I don’t know what that new way is, so I’m just going to give examples of old ways’”
Great quote Gareth.
Especially the last sentence.
I will definitely nick it.
Dave, what do you think the CD of the future will be? From your experience, is the 2010 CD any different from, say, the 1970s CD? What would say is the biggest difference? I was aghast to see some writer with very little long copy experience being made Copy Chief. My mates tell me, “yeah, but the world has changed”. Even so, aren’t Copy Chiefs supposed to excel at writing? How does someone with little copy experience guide other writers?
Dave
You’ve told us in the past that your padre was a policeman.
Would you say there’s a lot of him in you?
The evidence m’lud:
‘I will definitely nick it.’
Ian,
In football they say the slowest players make better managers because they’ve had to think more: Ferguson, Wenger, Shankley, Jackie Charlton.
Better players don’t necessarilly make better managers: Bobby Moore, Bobby Charlton, Alan Shearer, Kevin Keegan, Glenn Hoddle.
I think it may be that way in our business.
Being able to get other people to do it is not the same as being able to do it yourself.
Grilla,
My dad was a police sergeant.
(All my family were sergeants in the police, the army, or the marines.)
What I learned from my dad was “The spirit of the law, not the letter of the law”.
(Pragmatism.)
Plus I learned from him and my uncles was (as Napoleon said) “Officers don’t win wars, sergeants win wars.”
Thanks Dave. Very valid observation. Still, it’s hard for me to accept someone without the ability to write properly to pass comments. Maybe a bit like when you were at BMP and only accepted Webster as your Executive Creative Director.
Hi Dave,
Did your Dad like Dixon of Dock Green with Jack Warner?
Hi Kevin,
More like Colour Sergeant Bourne in the film Zulu.
With a little bit of John Thaw in The Sweeny.
Dave
Did your dad ever come across a hairy hounded gent who ran amok in kent?
You better stay away from him,
he’ll rip your lungs out Jim.
Helps explain why GGT’s stuff was so arresting, Dave.
“Irish stew in the name of the law”
Spike Milligan