How Establishments Fall

[leaders are] usually busy furiously making believe that there is no decline. Instead of leading societies out of decline (which is what they should be doing), they’re working night and day manufacturing (or luxuriously reclining in) what I’ll call Unreality Bubbles... intelligentsias manufacture unrealities in eras of decline because their position at the top of the heap depends on doing so... their first and greatest incentive is to push the myth that there is no decline. Whatever the intelligentsia in an age of decline does, it cannot validate, prove, even often discuss, the possibility of decline as real, actual, happening, true...
The moment that you choose unreality over reality is the instant you stop being capable of being a true leader. Unreality destroys not just the mind of a leader— but the heart and soul of one.,, the higher leaders rise, the more of their lives they spend in unreality — not reality. They golf, dine, club with the intelligentsia more than they visit the mall, the town square, social media. They read the columns and bookmark the pages and get the emails. But they don’t read the desperate blog posts, hear the outraged voices, experience the real...
The central challenge of leadership in an age of decline is pricking the Unreality Bubble.