Truth, Trust and 2020
The third decade of the century is here, together with a myriad of challenges that center on truth and trust. In this third decade, the ultimate success of public relations and marketing professionals often hinges on achieving two difficult tasks: presenting an actionable reason to believe and validating claims.
In today’s screen-driven environment, this are no easy tasks. These tasks must be accomplished in an entertainment-driven setting. According to the Edelman Trust Report, upwards of 75% of people believe that their key information, their news, their knowledge about the world around them and what to do about it, was tainted with deliberately false or misleading information that could actually be used as a weapon again them!
What is truth?
To be successful in this new decade, communications professionals must therefore concern them themselves with truth. How does a company establish truthfulness of claims, and how do they properly present said truth? This is critical in order to effectively advocate, convince, motivate and move their prospects and target audiences. In a society of global reach where information can be transmitted in seconds, a critical fact remains: truthfulness and believability of content must be trustworthy.
Why is this important? Consider the history of the Man in the Prague Castle and the takeaway critical PR lesson of symbolism and the perception of truth.
Defining truth with narrative
Here’s the background: with the 1918 finale to endless war in Europe, new countries sprang up among the ruins and ashes of defeated and dissolved former empires. One such nation was Czechoslovakia, who sought back then to redefine itself as a recognizable culture, complete with national narratives.
One such important narrative quickly emerged with the man in Prague Castle, now a center point of the then-fledgling nation. The conferred identity of this man underscores the power of a story to strategically unify and define. It reflects what Archaeology magazine calls “the cataclysmic political upheavals of the 20th century.”
How could the fossilized remains of a 1,000-year-old skeleton impact political events, change management and the identify of an emerging peoples?
Old narratives can be part mythology and part actual history, but they are no less powerful in furnishing a vibrant lodestone of definition for both national and local narratives – their stories give focused meaning.
What happened? Soon after Czechoslovakia declared its claim of solemn sovereignty, excavations deep within the oldest part of Prague Castle revealed the millennial-old remains of a warrior buried with his weapons. The skeletal remains were identified as Borivoj I of the ancient House of Přemysl.
Validation of legitimacy
Why is this important? The House of Přemysl was a Czech royal dynasty that ruled the Slavs in the region around Prague, raising up the commercially powerful nation of Bohemia from 870-1198 A.D. in central Europe. The presence of the ancestral bones of a ancient Slavic king validated the modern claims of the sovereign legitimacy of the new nation of Czechoslovakia. The Slavic narrative worked well in fashioning a new national culture from the ashes of the now-collapsed Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Then, barely a decade later. The Nazi Wehrmacht ruthlessly marched into the capital city of Prague, declaring Czechoslovakia’s sovereignty to be null and void. The Nazi national narrative also held critical ancestral claims. From these sprang a cultural superiority mythology, shaped by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, who knew the power inherent in a racial community (Volksgemeinschaft) aligned with Nazi political ideals.
What did this have to do with the fossilized remains of the Man in the Prague Castle? It would simply not do to have a Slav as the center of a national narrative being reshaped according to Nazi Aryan culture. According to Aryan cultural beliefs, Slavs were inferior. The Nazi mythology called for descendants from the Nordic Vikings.
A forced political narrative emerges
So, the archaeological claims that the prominent Man in the Prague Castle was a founder of the House of Přemysl were quickly declared untrue. Instead, it was enthusiastically announced that the fossilized remains were instead the warrior remains of a Viking!
This aligned perfectly with Nazi ideology. As Archaeology magazine notes, “Viking, Nordic and German identity was conflated to justify occupation and control of Eastern Europe, as well as the Nazi extermination of Slavs, Jews and other populations they deemed inferior.”
The fossilized Man in the Prague Castle again became important with the close of World War II and the defeat of the Nazi Reich. Russian hegemony expanded over the Czechoslovakian state, with the Soviet Union recasting the country as a satellite nation of the U.S.S.R.
As the Communist Party came to power, the identity of the long-dead Man in the Prague Castle was politically transformed. “Seen through the eyes of the country’s new Slavic Soviet masters, the warrior buried in the Prague Castle was once again [officially] deemed a Slav,” according to Archaeology.
But his prominence faded and the remains were taken from public view and placed in storage.
That is, until 1991, when the Soviet Union crumbled and a new state of Czechoslovakia re-emerged.
The forgotten Man in the Prague Castle again rose to national prominence, as the symbolism attached to this long-dead Slavic King served up a strong sense of legitimacy – the people of Czechoslovakia had ancient roots of stability through this warrior king of the ancient House of Přemysl. The fossilized bones give validity to long-time claims of the newest Czech state.
Validated story-telling
Personalized examples of people in real-life situations are powerful. The stories that emanate from these examples validate corporate, political and organizational claims. In a world where “fake news” and social media hype wrestle for influence, these stories bolster a sense of truthfulness and believability.
But in an era of eroded trust, companies must take extra care in fashioning their corporate narratives. The 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer found an “urgent need for change.”
People generally want to believe, and they are searching for entities that can believed. The 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer found an interesting trend: “Fifty-eight percent of general population employees [surveyed] say they look to their employer to be a trustworthy source of information about contentious social issues.”
Unfortunately, while that may have been true in 2019, research conducted by the British Economist international newsmagazine found that such trust can be a two-edged sword.
As the magazine opines: “There used to be an iron rule for any American boss tempted to talk about politics: don’t. Recently, this rule has been discarded.” The possible result in 2020? The magazine prophesies that “In 2020 this new breed of activist CEOs will face three problems that politicians know well: the charge of hypocrisy, the risk of a recession and destabilizing ideological shifts.”
The takeaway? There is an important lesson to be remembered about the Man in The Prague Castle. Narratives and ideological roles can change or shift. Credibility and trustworthiness are fragile states that must be carefully preserved. Story-telling and narrative building are critically important tools in advocating, validating and establishing corporate information.
But all such stories must be grounded in truth that can be validated. Only then can they be truly actionable and lasting, for they will have acquired the all-important virtue of trust.
A long-time student of archaeology and anthropology, Michael Snyder is managing principal of MEK.