Smoke & Mirrors

Leaders need to act in accordance with their values

The Cheat Detected by Edward Bird, 1814 (Sir John Soane's Museum - CC BY-NC-ND)

“The truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.” — Marcus Aurelius

The camera ought to be listed as one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

More than the awe-inspiring Great Wall or the mysterious Machu Picchu, cameras have allowed us to capture and easily manipulate the world around us.

As early as 1855 in Paris, at the second world fair, a German photographer demonstrated his ability to retouch the negative of a photograph, thus producing a more desired effect.

This harmless action has evolved into the now-familiar editing features we see in the photo apps on our phones. What was once the capturing of unflinching truth is now subject to our whims and moods.

Susan Sontag observed, “Instead of just recording reality, photographs have become the norm for the way things appear to us, thereby changing the very idea of reality, and of realism.”

That could almost be the missio…