I thought the Emper­or’s New Clothes was just a fairy tale

In hasty obe­di­ence, com­pa­nies delete web­sites focused on diver­si­ty. It might endan­ger their busi­ness prospects.

News­pa­pers and jour­nals adjust their course, align­ing with the rul­ing pow­ers by pub­lish­ing one-sided opin­ion pages. Crit­i­cism of this is no longer pub­lished.

The lan­guage is adapt­ed to fit rad­i­cal par­ties, and along with it comes a dete­ri­o­ra­tion of thought, sim­ple mea­sures are pre­sent­ed to be the solu­tion to com­plex issues. Con­text and dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion in debates — or even the good old qual­i­ty of dia­logue — are lost.

Grad­u­al­ly and step by step, cor­rec­tive mea­sures take hold. What was sharply crit­i­cised just a few years ago is now the norm and is swal­lowed or even endorsed. Right-wing extrem­ist ide­ol­o­gy, boor­ish behav­iour or con­temp­tu­ous insult no longer need to be kept to small, pri­vate cir­cles. They have con­quered the world stage and are being prop­a­gat­ed with a deaf­en­ing roar.   

Now, it is the oth­ers who remain silent and through their silence, they far too often sig­nal approval.  

Those swindlers — as they are called in the fairy tale — who deceive the king with tales of mag­nif­i­cent cloth­ing, now dom­i­nate the con­ver­sa­tion and pull the strings. In the fairy tale, they are reward­ed with the title of ‘Impe­r­i­al Court Weavers’.

Only a small child, per­haps unaware of the false­ness, hypocrisy, deceit­ful promis­es and ego games, final­ly states the obvi­ous. ‘But he has noth­ing on at all’!

The rules are chang­ing, and a cul­ture of fear is tak­ing hold. Some are the vocif­er­ous fol­low­ers and oth­ers just don’t want to attract atten­tion. Pol­i­tics sets the exam­ple. It rein­forces these behav­iours, and not just in typ­i­cal­ly bureau­crat­ic organ­i­sa­tions, where respon­si­bil­i­ty is passed up the chain to the next high­er man­age­ment lev­el, where peo­ple loud­ly agree when oth­ers are made pub­lic scape­goats, and where they do not hes­i­tate to spread half-truths. Dili­gent­ly and  sub­mis­sive­ly, peo­ple rush to avoid mis­takes, to avoid becom­ing the next pub­lic scape­goat, or to avoid pub­lic humil­i­a­tion.

And we all know how fatal a cul­ture of fear can be for the spir­it of inno­va­tion, for cre­ativ­i­ty and even for humour and cheer­ful coop­er­a­tion.

We still believe these are just small adjust­ments to our behav­iour to avoid pro­vok­ing the loud ones. But where is the tip­ping point?

Let’s strength­en each oth­er and stay coura­geous. 

Or to put it oth­er words: Let’s not wait too long for the lit­tle child.

The Emperor’s New Clothes

by

Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen

(1837)

Many, many years ago lived an emper­or, who thought so much of new clothes that he spent all his mon­ey in order to obtain them; his only ambi­tion was to be always well dressed. He did not care for his sol­diers, and the the­atre did not amuse him; the only thing, in fact, he thought any­thing of was to dri­ve out and show a new suit of clothes. He had a coat for every hour of the day; and as one would say of a king “He is in his cab­i­net,” so one could say of him, “The emper­or is in his dress­ing-room.”

The great city where he resided was very gay; every day many strangers from all parts of the globe arrived. One day two swindlers came to this city; they made peo­ple believe that they were weavers, and declared they could man­u­fac­ture the finest cloth to be imag­ined. Their colours and pat­terns, they said, were not only excep­tion­al­ly beau­ti­ful, but the clothes made of their mate­r­i­al pos­sessed the won­der­ful qual­i­ty of being invis­i­ble to any man who was unfit for his office or unpar­don­ably stu­pid.

“That must be won­der­ful cloth,” thought the emper­or. “If I were to be dressed in a suit made of this cloth I should be able to find out which men in my empire were unfit for their places, and I could dis­tin­guish the clever from the stu­pid. I must have this cloth woven for me with­out delay.” And he gave a large sum of mon­ey to the swindlers, in advance, that they should set to work with­out any loss of time. They set up two looms, and pre­tend­ed to be very hard at work, but they did noth­ing what­ev­er on the looms. They asked for the finest silk and the most pre­cious gold-cloth; all they got they did away with, and worked at the emp­ty looms till late at night.

“I should very much like to know how they are get­ting on with the cloth,” thought the emper­or. But he felt rather uneasy when he remem­bered that he who was not fit for his office could not see it. Per­son­al­ly, he was of opin­ion that he had noth­ing to fear, yet he thought it advis­able to send some­body else first to see how mat­ters stood. Every­body in the town knew what a remark­able qual­i­ty the stuff pos­sessed, and all were anx­ious to see how bad or stu­pid their neigh­bours were.

“I shall send my hon­est old min­is­ter to the weavers,” thought the emper­or. “He can judge best how the stuff looks, for he is intel­li­gent, and nobody under­stands his office bet­ter than he.”

The good old min­is­ter went into the room where the swindlers sat before the emp­ty looms. “Heav­en pre­serve us!” he thought, and opened his eyes wide, “I can­not see any­thing at all,” but he did not say so. Both swindlers request­ed him to come near, and asked him if he did not admire the exquis­ite pat­tern and the beau­ti­ful colours, point­ing to the emp­ty looms. The poor old min­is­ter tried his very best, but he could see noth­ing, for there was noth­ing to be seen. “Oh dear,” he thought, “can I be so stu­pid? I should nev­er have thought so, and nobody must know it! Is it pos­si­ble that I am not fit for my office? No, no, I can­not say that I was unable to see the cloth.”

“Now, have you got noth­ing to say?” said one of the swindlers, while he pre­tend­ed to be busi­ly weav­ing.

“Oh, it is very pret­ty, exceed­ing­ly beau­ti­ful,” replied the old min­is­ter look­ing through his glass­es. “What a beau­ti­ful pat­tern, what bril­liant colours! I shall tell the emper­or that I like the cloth very much.”

“We are pleased to hear that,” said the two weavers, and described to him the colours and explained the curi­ous pat­tern. The old min­is­ter lis­tened atten­tive­ly, that he might relate to the emper­or what they said; and so he did.

Now the swindlers asked for more mon­ey, silk and gold-cloth, which they required for weav­ing. They kept every­thing for them­selves, and not a thread came near the loom, but they con­tin­ued, as hith­er­to, to work at the emp­ty looms.

Soon after­wards the emper­or sent anoth­er hon­est courtier to the weavers to see how they were get­ting on, and if the cloth was near­ly fin­ished. Like the old min­is­ter, he looked and looked but could see noth­ing, as there was noth­ing to be seen.

“Is it not a beau­ti­ful piece of cloth?” asked the two swindlers, show­ing and explain­ing the mag­nif­i­cent pat­tern, which, how­ev­er, did not exist.

“I am not stu­pid,” said the man. “It is there­fore my good appoint­ment for which I am not fit. It is very strange, but I must not let any one know it;” and he praised the cloth, which he did not see, and expressed his joy at the beau­ti­ful colours and the fine pat­tern. “It is very excel­lent,” he said to the emper­or.

Every­body in the whole town talked about the pre­cious cloth. At last the emper­or wished to see it him­self, while it was still on the loom. With a num­ber of courtiers, includ­ing the two who had already been there, he went to the two clever swindlers, who now worked as hard as they could, but with­out using any thread.

“Is it not mag­nif­i­cent?” said the two old states­men who had been there before. “Your Majesty must admire the colours and the pat­tern.” And then they point­ed to the emp­ty looms, for they imag­ined the oth­ers could see the cloth.

“What is this?” thought the emper­or, “I do not see any­thing at all. That is ter­ri­ble! Am I stu­pid? Am I unfit to be emper­or? That would indeed be the most dread­ful thing that could hap­pen to me.”

“Real­ly,” he said, turn­ing to the weavers, “your cloth has our most gra­cious approval;” and nod­ding con­tent­ed­ly he looked at the emp­ty loom, for he did not like to say that he saw noth­ing. All his atten­dants, who were with him, looked and looked, and although they could not see any­thing more than the oth­ers, they said, like the emper­or, “It is very beau­ti­ful.” And all advised him to wear the new mag­nif­i­cent clothes at a great pro­ces­sion which was soon to take place. “It is mag­nif­i­cent, beau­ti­ful, excel­lent,” one heard them say; every­body seemed to be delight­ed, and the emper­or appoint­ed the two swindlers “Impe­r­i­al Court weavers.”

The whole night pre­vi­ous to the day on which the pro­ces­sion was to take place, the swindlers pre­tend­ed to work, and burned more than six­teen can­dles. Peo­ple should see that they were busy to fin­ish the emperor’s new suit. They pre­tend­ed to take the cloth from the loom, and worked about in the air with big scis­sors, and sewed with nee­dles with­out thread, and said at last: “The emperor’s new suit is ready now.”

The emper­or and all his barons then came to the hall; the swindlers held their arms up as if they held some­thing in their hands and said: “These are the trousers!” “This is the coat!” and “Here is the cloak!” and so on. “They are all as light as a cob­web, and one must feel as if one had noth­ing at all upon the body; but that is just the beau­ty of them.”

“Indeed!” said all the courtiers; but they could not see any­thing, for there was noth­ing to be seen.

“Does it please your Majesty now to gra­cious­ly undress,” said the swindlers, “that we may assist your Majesty in putting on the new suit before the large look­ing-glass?”

The emper­or undressed, and the swindlers pre­tend­ed to put the new suit upon him, one piece after anoth­er; and the emper­or looked at him­self in the glass from every side.

“How well they look! How well they fit!” said all. “What a beau­ti­ful pat­tern! What fine colours! That is a mag­nif­i­cent suit of clothes!”

The mas­ter of the cer­e­monies announced that the bear­ers of the canopy, which was to be car­ried in the pro­ces­sion, were ready.

“I am ready,” said the emper­or. “Does not my suit fit me mar­vel­lous­ly?” Then he turned once more to the look­ing-glass, that peo­ple should think he admired his gar­ments.

The cham­ber­lains, who were to car­ry the train, stretched their hands to the ground as if they lift­ed up a train, and pre­tend­ed to hold some­thing in their hands; they did not like peo­ple to know that they could not see any­thing.

The emper­or marched in the pro­ces­sion under the beau­ti­ful canopy, and all who saw him in the street and out of the win­dows exclaimed: “Indeed, the emperor’s new suit is incom­pa­ra­ble! What a long train he has! How well it fits him!” Nobody wished to let oth­ers know he saw noth­ing, for then he would have been unfit for his office or too stu­pid. Nev­er emperor’s clothes were more admired.

“But he has noth­ing on at all,” said a lit­tle child at last. “Good heav­ens! lis­ten to the voice of an inno­cent child,” said the father, and one whis­pered to the oth­er what the child had said. “But he has noth­ing on at all,” cried at last the whole peo­ple. That made a deep impres­sion upon the emper­or, for it seemed to him that they were right; but he thought to him­self, “Now I must bear up to the end.” And the cham­ber­lains walked with still greater dig­ni­ty, as if they car­ried the train which did not exist.

Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen (1805–1875)