Stanley McChrystal: belief

Transcript context

…Let’s say 20 years from now, 30 years from now, what does the equilibrium look like for controversial public figures? Will it be a world where you almost can’t go out in public? If the trend continues where it is, I think you’ll have a tremendous number of people who won’t even consider becoming public figures. They will just avoid it. Then you will have these people who I call Teflon celebrities, where their goal in life is to be a celebrity. They just don’t mind that. They will step into the limelight, as many have now, and they will live there. The danger is that our politicians come from that latter group — people who are willing to go into very public spaces like that, or actually the people who in previous times would’ve been superficial celebrities. I think that’s very, very dangerous, but we’re going to have to come to grips with it. The social media ability, the glare — if we can’t get some maturity in this and some new accommodation, then I think we’ll have a very difficult period 20 years from now. I can’t envision exactly what the solution is, but I know there’s going to have to be something. Is there any plausible scenario where defense beats offense, or at least holds it back?…

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