Dear … (future Prime Minister)

We live in a time when it is not so important to understand our past mistakes, nor to know what to do, but to do it well. Therefore, dear …, I will not write about what others have done wrong, but about what you will do right.

First, but also finally, you will be strong and powerful. You will be strong by understanding that the instruments of formal democracy are effective only when used by those who have all kinds of power at their disposal. From theory and practice, you know very well how disastrous the belief is that formal democracy works by itself, without human influence (power). Such democracy creates weaklings, cowards, and softies in all social structures. The institutions of formal democracy, such as laws, statutes, and equals, superiors … are perfect excuses for their silence, laziness, and inaction. At the highest level of such formal democracy, with the most perfect network of formal hiding places, we also find the most fertile ground for corruption.

Formal democracy without values (and values are nothing but blood and flesh of human power or weakness) is a gelding or a malignant mutant spawned by the myopic permissiveness of Western civilization.

Knowing full well that you cannot change such a society, you will, by personal example, put forward your personal choices, even though they are biased. The stronger the decision – the stronger the bias. As a strong leader, you will require everyone who works with you to have the same bias or a different bias – as long as it is a bias. You will punish those who still hide behind the rule of law – and reward those who execute their bias in line with the rule of law.

Since you are not a narrow-minded dictator, you will know that sense and wisdom are the second pillars of leadership. Therefore, the voices of brainstorming will provide you with a safety net, rather than the formal institutions of democracy. You will not have to cry when you are criticized, because you will know that only you (if you are powerful enough) can evaluate any statement as destructive or constructive. You know this because you have been entrusted with memetics. A wise leader has only constructive opposition. Wise and powerful people know that people are inherently lazy and that they (we) need peer and oversight institutions, not to tell them what they did wrong, but to stop them from being lazy.

Since you are a strong and wise leader, you will not find it challenging to resolve internal disagreements behind closed doors. Only weak family leaders will be heard outside their house. Just as you do not clean your house with the doors open so everyone can inspect your garbage, you should not argue in a way that includes all possible members of the public. You know that you should not put burdens on those who are not capable of carrying burdens.

Being wise, you know that there is not a single event or particle in the universe that is not beautiful in itself. Beauty will be your third leg in every single action you will perform. So, you will not limit beauty to art or culture, but demand that it be equally present in balance sheets, business plans, budgets, boards of directors, government machinery, and you will expect symmetry or balance in the physical world. The words that come out of your mouth will be perfect proof that the power they wield and the wisdom they hold are only efficient when they vibrate in harmony. They will understand that people want to live in a beautiful world, no matter how much money is plastered on their lips.

At the end (or in the beginning), you will know silently that compassion, humility, and love weave a soft, invisible fabric upon which you walk. Because when that fabric becomes visible, it reverses. You will not be compassionate after natural disasters or accidents but before they occur. You will not be humble when you are weak, but when you are strong. Being humble in a church is perverse; being humble on a pinnacle of power is divine.

As such, you will know that you only need four Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to measure your effectiveness and success: Power, Wisdom, Beauty, and Compassion. (And yes, you can measure the invisible!) You will forget about macro and micro indicators, because you know that they are neither the cause of success nor the end goal for the citizens you will lead. You know full well that macro-economic mumbling is the same threat as hiding behind the institutions of formal democracy. As a strong and wise person, you will know how to use these and other institutions of contemporary society – but you will not be their slave.

As such, you will know that we, whose subject you are, do not expect better or worse analysis and do not want to do the cleaning job that you or those we pay should do. We do not want to be blind actors in the courts of weak leaders. You will not tell us to tighten our belts because times are tough, but you will make me happy because you know that core values are shared by the majority of citizens you will represent. Because you know that shared values are the only leverage you can rely on.

If you ask me why you should act in this way, I must tell you: there is no other way.  

Sincerely yours,

Andrej Drapal

(This letter has been and will be sent to all future Prime Ministers of Slovenia from 2014)  

Comment 2026

As soon as you understand that power, limited by wisdom and beauty, cannot produce by inner force anything but humility, based on egoism, you cannot but accept that the only productive coercive power you have is that which you can execute on yourself.

This statement of homonism does not contradict the statement from the above Letter to the Future Prime Minister that he should have power (to enforce) above all else. If power is understood separately from wisdom and beauty (and humility), then that power will be abused. If power is understood and executed in concert with the other two forces, then it can only be exercised on oneself. “You can never change others; you can only change yourself” should not be understood as a lovely saying, but as the ethical basis of egoism and humility on the one hand, and as the way to the highest possible influence (coercive power) on the environment.

Whenever even a trace of power separate from other forces is found in words or actions, that trace is tantamount to a trace of totalitarian thinking or collectivist thinking. Even a trace of the belief that one can exercise power over anyone else because one is entitled to do so, because one holds a position or has better access to “common interests,” already dismantles any individual’s freedom.