Bob Schwartz

Commerce has been part of human life from the beginning. Acquiring, trading, buying, selling.

Commercial means more than that. It includes messages about acquiring, trading, buying, selling.

The difference over time has been the balance of these commercial elements with other parts of our lives and culture. One vision of a dystopian future has been one in which commercial messages are ubiquitous and constant. The more we want to acquire, trade, buy, sell, the more the messages are about doing that, and the more those messages encourage and tempt us to do that.

We may not have reached that predicted dystopia, but it is fair to say that we are living in a commercial culture, with both the commerce and the messages.

Which is why we should not be surprised that a leader emerged whose entire life has been devoted not just to commerce, but to commercial messaging. In fact, since stretching the truth, or outright lying and deception, is considered a part of commercial messaging, we should also not be surprised that the leadership involves lots of truth stretching, lying and deception. If a commercial spokesman ends up as leader, what else would we expect?

It might be good for us to back off a little—or a lot—from the commercial culture we find ourselves in. Unfortunately, it won’t result in a quick change in current leadership. But it can put us on the path to better balance between the commercial and the non-commercial. And in time, maybe find ourselves with lives and leadership involving less acquiring, trading, buying, selling, less messaging about those, and more messaging about other things of value.

© 2025 by Bob Schwartz