David Brooks has written a fascinating essay on how self-presentation in politics is very different from that in the academic world, and how Michael Ignatieff came to grief in Canada finding this out the hard way. I don’t feel the need to comment further on politics here, but I wish Brooks had written about a third area of life: the business world. I fear that it is more like the political world than the academic world. Of course Brooks probably doesn’t know anything about business, but I wish somebody competent would write a follow-up to Brooks on how self-presentation in business differs from what occurs in academics and politics.
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