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Comment by thaumasiotes | Hacker News Reader

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> You don't do it in public.

The comment you're replying to specifically nullified your example.

You might want to read the comments before you decide what they mean. It doesn't say "face can only be lost in public". It says "face can only be lost among peers and superiors".

If you want to understand "face" here's a 56 min video : https://library.biblicalarchaeology.org/video/honor-and-sham...

The Biden case seems like an example of when the senior leader was not given any honest feedback in private and then was humiliated in public. If anything that’s a reason to give feedback to the leader privately without sugar coating.

According to the comment I responded to, the senior leader can't be humiliated in public, because there is no such concept as the senior leader losing face.

"The people" are the president's superior.

Only in the same sense that bottom-level employees are the CEO's superior. Which is to say, they aren't.

Formal structure can stabilize a system and make it resilient to shocks. But there's a limit to how much stability can be provided, and if you provide enough shock, the structure will change.

> Only in the same sense that bottom-level employees are the CEO's superior. Which is to say, they aren't.

Fascinating: What companies do you know of that have democratic elections of CEOs?

Doesn't nearly every company have a democratic process for choosing CEOs? Just that the voters are only the board members.

Your "just" is the point.

So the Soviet system was democratic?

> Only in the same sense that bottom-level employees are the CEO's superior. Which is to say, they aren't.

There's an important difference. Bottom-level employees don't get to choose the CEO at most companies.

The president is not above the people.

In fact, given the context we're talking about (having to go debate to try to get their votes), he's below them in the hierarchy in this particular social context.

The president may be more powerful than any individual person, but when facing the public _collectively_, they're quite literally his boss, as they get to decide if he keeps his job.

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