Idries Shah is the source for the dialog (and exposition) in this comic, but it was necessary to shift the subject matter a bit to repurpose its ‘learning function’ and attach it to a contemporary situation.
The reader likely will need to work a bit to tease out the subtle didactic aim of the exposition. The situation of the GOP stands in for all similar situations for which the actual mechanics of leading and following are willfully obscured and substituted with, and here’s the first hint, an idealization about different mechanics.
The subject matter is: the psychological problem of following leaders. What follows are some clues and only clues.
(1) David Corn writes about Project Groundswell, a group of conservative thought leaders working together to lead thoughts and improve followers’ reasons for following.
(2) The Impostor Syndrome: is when the pressure of knowing directly about one’s own faults undermines the effort to present one’s relatively faultless self to others. “If those suckers who worship me only knew what I know!”
(3) The extension of the story, The Emperor With No Clothes; so: what happens next to the followers?
