“Come on Bobby, get in the car! We’ll give you a ride!”
“No, Dickie. It’s just a couple blocks. I’ll walk.”
“Get in Bobby! Quit being such a wet blanket! I want to show you my new tennis racket!”
On May 21 1924, two Chicago teenagers, Nathan Leopold and Richard “Dickie” Loeb, rented a car. It was the first step of their plan for the afternoon’s perfect crime.
Leopold, a former child prodigy, was 19. He had just graduated from the University of Chicago and was preparing to enter Harvard Law School.
Loeb was 18. A year earlier, he had graduated from the University of Michigan as the youngest graduate ever.
Leopoold and Loeb drove slowly down the street. They spotted their chosen victim. 14-year-old Bobby Franks, Loeb’s second cousin.
It was supposed to be the perfect murder. A demonstration that Leopold and Loeb were supermen. Because Leopold was a big reader of Friedrich Nietzsche. He was fascinated by Nietzsche’s idea of the superman — the rare, unusually gifted man who can rise above common morality.
Besides, Leopold thought, he and Loeb were too smart. They had planned everything. Nobody could ever catch them.
Leopold and Loeb cajoled Bobby into the car. A few moments later, they knocked him out with a chisel, dragged him to the back seat, and strangled him.
They then disposed of the body in a pre-planned location, 25 miles south of Chicago. They washed the upholstery of the car and went on with their lives.
“Err… fascinating stuff, Bejako,” I hear you say. “But why are you creeping me out? Where is this story going?
All right, let me get to it.
Yesterday, I talked abut a squeaky-clean guru who seemed to blatantly lie about his backstory to please the audience. I promised to wrap that email up today.
So the first half of what I want to tell you is:
Sell a transfer of responsibility.
Because Leopold and Loeb did not succeed in carrying off the perfect murder. An act of Providence interfered.
Loeb’s horn-rimmed glasses slipped out next to the body of Bobby Franks. The glasses had a custom hinge that could be traced back to only three people in Chicago, Loeb among them.
At the subsequent trial, Leopold and Loeb’s lawyer focused all his efforts on avoiding the death penalty. He gave a 12-hour-long closing statement, which has become a classic of American law. He supposedly brought tears to the judge’s eyes.
The lawyer managed to keep Leopold and Loeb from the gallows. He persuaded the judge to spare them in spite of the gruesome and senseless crime… in spite of the innocence of the victim… and in spite of the public outcry for the two young supermen to be hanged.
So how did the lawyer do it?
First, he admitted that Leopold and Loeb had done the deed.
And then, over those 12 hours, he explained the real blame lay at the feet of Loeb’s domineering governess… of nature and evolution… of bloodthirsty newspapers… of callous university professors who exposed the two teenagers to ideas they were not ready for… of the Macmillan publishing company and its reckless spreading of inflammatory books… and of course, of Friedrich Nietzsche.
In other words, the deed might have been Leopold and Loeb’s. But the fault was everybody else’s. And the judge bought it.
Just imagine:
If an appeal like this can sway an impartial, third-party, external judge… what can it do for a partial, first-party, internal judge?
That’s what I’m talking about. Transfer of responsibility.
That’s why smart marketers find ways to take that internal judge in the prospect’s mind.. and show him how all those bad outcomes in the past are everybody else’s fault. And not only that.
Smart marketers also make the prospect believe any possible bad outcomes in the future won’t be his fault either.
But perhaps you’re worried about the bad future outcome of this email never finishing. So let me really wrap it up.
My conclusion is that a transfer of responsibility is something you want to sell to people…
But it’s not something you want to buy yourself. Or at least I don’t.
Because I’ve learned from direct marketing how powerful this drive to escape responsibility can be. And I’ve since noticed it in myself as well.
I’ve also learned that trustworthiness and authority can be easily bought online.
That’s why I’ve made it a personal policy not to get attached to online personalities. Even the ones I like and feel I can trust.
Of course, I consider their ideas. But I take on the responsibility of deciding whether these ideas are something I should believe in and act upon… or not.
Perhaps that’s a policy that makes sense for you to adopt as well. And you know. Not because I say so.
Last thing:
If you like reading Friedrich Nietsche, you might like my email newsletter. Here’s where you can give it a try.