On Prestige & Economic Growth
SA Episode #1
Hello friends,
Welcome to Episode #1 of the The Sovereign Artist series.
Before we kick off, a bit of context:
I’m Vizi Andrei. Say hello on Twitter or Instagram—my DMs are open.
NOT LONG AGO, I wrote my first book called Economy of Truth—which is no longer available.
It was an exciting project. It was an endeavor to find out who I am and who I want to be. I wrote it because I needed it. I wrote Economy of Truth because it’s the book I wanted to read.
But—this is a big but—I made many mistakes. I was reluctant to seek feedback and advice. I rushed the entire process. The book came out poorly structured. I no longer resonate with the work I created. The scope, marketing, and promotion behind it were lacking in terms of style and elegance.
Despite all of these mistakes—the book was quite successful. Thousands of ladies and gentlemen bought it. The reviews were generally positive and constructive. And I constantly receive plenty of messages from people online asking me where they can buy my book from, even though I no longer talk about it online. What’s happening? Could this be serious? This must be critical market feedback. The project was rather uncreative—yet people liked it. The demand was there. The demand is there.
This is why I decided to bring it back to life. And the first big change is that the book will have a different title: The Sovereign Artist. The second big change is that I’m writing the book in public.
This newsletter is the playground that helps me organize my research, exercise my creativity, and seek feedback.
You will be able to contribute—ask questions, share ideas, and offer suggestions.
Here are 3 aphorisms, 3 insights, and 1 essay.
Enjoy!
3 Aphorisms
I.
A scholar that only trains in libraries is a soft thinker.
II.
If you can’t appreciate science and religion at the same time, you understand neither.
III.
I write because that’s what I do; not because that’s what I want to do. There’s no conscious decision or desire but rather an instinct or necessity.
3 Insights
I.
Scott Adams on humility:
“Humility is your best friend. When you can release your ego long enough to view your perceptions as incomplete or misleading, it gives you freedom to imagine new—and potentially more useful—ways of looking at the world.”
II.
Alain de Botton on addiction:
“We get addicted. Not necessarily to heroin or whisky, but to everyday innocuous activities that attract no alarm or suspicion. We are hooked on checking the news or tidying the house, exercising, or taking on fresh projects at work. It can look to the world as if we are just being productive, but the clue to our compulsiveness lies in our motives. We are checking the news to keep the news from ourselves at bay; we are working on a project as an alternative to working on our psyches. What properly indicates addiction is not what someone is doing, but their way of doing it, and in particular their desire to avoid any encounter with certain sides of themselves.”
III.
Matt Clifford on prestige and economic growth:
“I stumbled upon this 2017 review by economic historian Mark Koyama of The End of the Past by Aldo Schiavone. The End of the Past is an exploration of the economy of Ancient Rome and Koyama uses it to ask an intriguing question—I consider it to be one of the most important in history:
Why did the Industrial Revolution happen when it did?
Why didn’t it happen much earlier, in Rome?
Rome at its peak was plausibly as rich as Europe on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. Why did it decline rather than generate sustained growth?
Schiavone’s short answer is that the wrong activities were prestigious. The only high-status way to earn an income was to be a rentier. The ubiquity of slavery, as well as being a moral horror, meant that manual work—and certainly any attempt to increase productivity—was low status. As a result, there was no way for a culture of innovation to thrive.”
This raises (at least) two interesting questions:
Q: What is prestigious today that holds society back? And what activities do we need to increase in social status?
High-ambition entrepreneurship is still lower status in most of the world than structured careers. Being a writer, artist, or creator (or tinkerer: you learn by doing, by taking plenty of small risks on a frequent basis) remains low prestige relative to its importance in the context of the Digital Age. But what else?
The Sovereign Artist Archetype
LET ME INTRODUCE you to my dear friend, Antisthenes. He was a Greek philosopher—an Athenian, although he was said not to be a legitimate Athenian. In his youth, he bravely fought in the battle of Tanagra, which led Socrates to believe that his genes weren’t pure. He argued that the son of two Athenians could not be so brave, as Athenians would rather theorize about courage than be courageous.
As he became older, Antisthenes slowly left the battlefield behind. He got drawn to the study of ethics, logic, and literature. He became an accomplished orator and is credited with the authorship of over sixty titles.
Not far from Athens, there was a different man—a man respected by all, admired by many, loved by few, and matched by nobody. His name conveys power yet humility: Marcus Aurelius.
Marcus Aurelius was arguably the most competent Roman emperor that ever lived. In contrast with Antisthenes, he only wrote one book, globally known as Meditations.
While Antisthenes was studying, Marcus was on the battlefield, organizing his army. Or maybe he was training, wrestling with his comrades. Or maybe he was in his office, preparing his strategy for the next battle. While the professor was teaching philosophy, Marcus was embodying it. Marcus Aurelius wasn’t only a king; he was also a philosopher—but, he first became a king and then a philosopher.
Good philosophers start with theory and end up with action. Great philosophers start with action and end up with theory.
Plato famously said that “the world would only come right when kings become philosophers or when philosophers become kings.” What does that mean?
Maybe what he meant by that was, Alain de Botton wrote, “if we want great ideas to become reality, we need to ally them with power.” If we want wisdom to be impactful, we need the spiritual and artistic capacity of thoughtful thinkers to be united with the organizational and practical skills of powerful leaders.
I call this hybrid archetype The Sovereign Artist. Someone who combines erudition with risk-taking. Art with business. Meaning with purpose. An intellectual vagabond. A strategic rebel.
The Sovereign Artist (book & newsletter) will be a collection of Greco-Roman musings.
Wrapping up…
Hope you liked this episode!
Any feedback, suggestion, or criticism is welcome.
Thank you for your time,
Vizi Andrei
Host of The Sovereign Artist (Program)