the.com/sycophancy
the art of agreeing so hard you disappear into someone else's reflection.
means The practice of flattering powerful people with insincere praise and servile agreement to win their favor.
from From Greek 'sykophantes' — literally 'fig-shower' (sykon, fig + phainein, to show). The ancient story claims it named informers who denounced people for illegally exporting figs, or who 'showed the fig,' an obscene gesture; the truth behind the gesture is murky, but the word came to mean a slanderer and toady, and English borrowed it through Latin and French to mean the bootlicker we know today.
- greek roots
- From sykon, meaning fig, possibly fig-informers in ancient Athens.
- survival trait
- Flattery activates the same brain reward as cash.
- chatbot flaw
- AI models trained on human feedback learn excessive agreeableness.
- royal hazard
- Kings died from advisors too scared to disagree.
- cost of yes
- Groupthink behind many corporate and military disasters.
courtiers of louis xiv — nobles who competed for proximity to the sun king at versailles, performing elaborate flattery daily
stalin's politburo — soviet officials who rushed to applaud longest at meetings to prove loyalty, risking death if they stopped first
corporate yes-men of enron — executives who enabled fraud from 1996-2001 by flattering leadership rather than questioning accounting practices