This is a story of a war strategy. It is a great battle of tactics in the field of law, between an untouchable antagonist and a secretive protagonist. This is a story of a conspiracy.
“Conspiracy entails determined, coordinated action, done in secret—always in secret—that aims to disrupt the status quo or accomplish some aim”, explains Holiday. And it was this secretive strategy that eventually prevails where nobody else before them succeeded.
This story begins with a take-down post at a notorious gossip blog owned by Gawker Media.
Now, Gawker is no saint. Founded in 2003, they are central to many nasty publications from celebrity sex tape to copyright leaks to framing public opinions on hot controversial topics, and all done while hiding behind the First Amendment on freedom of speech. This is a media who early in the game already uses clickbait and pay writers by the traffic, and “turn writing, social commentary, and journalism into a video game.”
But little did they know that their one blog post on 19 December 2007 – which reveals that the private and secretive protagonist is gay – would ripple into a world of chaos for them for almost a decade. Yes, a decade.
As Holiday remarks, “Machiavelli said that a proper conspiracy moves through three distinct phases: the planning, the doing, and the aftermath. Each of these phases requires different skills—from organization to strategic thinking to recruiting, funding, aiming, secrecy, managing public relations, leadership, foresight, and ultimately, knowing when to stop. Most important, a conspiracy requires patience and fortitude, so much patience, as much as it relies on boldness or courage.”
This is exactly how the story develops – slowly, patiently, with lots of calculations. And this is how the book is also organised, where at each step of the way Holiday draw parallel to strikingly similar occasions in history, so much so that it feels at times that I’m not reading a Ryan Holiday book but rather his mentor’s Robert Greene.
No more spoiler, because the story is so gripping with secret planning, setbacks, and several plot twists along the way, with an ending revealing a genius plan that could well be the plot in the series Money Heist.
But I can safely tell you that it teaches us a lot about the step by step process of a lawsuit in the US and the intriguing courtroom strategies to win over the hearts and minds of the jury. And perhaps most importantly is the ending of this saga, which I learned from the most, where the Romans often refer to as the Gallic Way.
Ryan Holiday has a unique vantage point for writing this story, because he had a direct access to abundant of information from both sides or the war, including from the main antagonist and protagonist. And he has repeatedly said that of all the dozen+ books that he has written, this one is his favourite to write and even claimed that this is his best work. I can see why. It’s an absolute masterpiece.
THE CHAOS THEORY 