OOH …Here’s One Thing
by Jim Johnsen,
Managing Director, Johnsen, Fretty & Company
Clear Channel is fiction.
Let that sink in for a moment. Now…
Lamar…figment. And yes, Outfront is a myth. Regan, Adams, Orange Barrel – pure mirage. New Tradition, Heritage, and, for that matter, every other outdoor company out there? You got it. Story.
As Ricky Ricardo once said, “Lucy, you got some ‘splaining to do.” So Johnsen, start explaining.
Well, as those who know me know, I am usually playing from behind, and in this case, I finally found the time this 4th of July weekend to crack open Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Ya, that book from 2011 that everyone was reading on a US Air flight in 2013. I’m a little behind. Better late than never, right?
Truth be told, I am only 25% in, but I am obsessed with the concept that we Homo sapiens now dominate the planet because we can create, through the use of very sophisticated language, intangible abstractions that bring large groups of people together to “pull on the same oar”. Here are a couple of quotes that perhaps capture what I am trying to say:
“The truly unique feature of our language is not its ability to transmit information about men and lions. Rather, it’s the ability to transmit information about things that do not exist at all. As far as we know, only sapiens can talk about entire kinds of entities that they have never seen, touched or smelled…This ability to speak about fiction is the most unique feature of Sapiens language…But why is it so important? …fiction has enabled us not merely to imagine things, but to do so collectively. We can weave common myths such as the biblical creation story, the Dreamtime myths of Aboriginal Australians, and the nationalist myths of modern states. Such Myths give Sapiens the unprecedented ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers.”
“Peugeot (the automobile manufacturer) belongs to a particular genre of legal fictions called “limited liability companies”. The idea behind such companies is among humanity’s most ingenious inventions. Homo sapiens lived for untold millennia without them. Throughout most of recorded history, property could be owned only by flesh-and-blood humans, the kind that stood on two legs and had large brains. If in the thirteenth century, France, Jean set up a wagon-manufacturing workshop, he was the business. …if the business failed…he might have to sell his children into servitude…or be thrown in prison…or be enslaved…You probably would have thought twice before opening an enterprise of your own…this is why people began collectively to imagine the existence of limited liability companies. Over the last few centuries such companies have become the main players in the economic arena, and we have grown so used to them that we forget they exist only in our imagination.”
“Much of history revolves around this question: how does one convince millions of people to believe particular stories about gods, or nations, or limited liability companies? Yet when it succeeds, it gives Sapiens immense power, because it enables millions of strangers to cooperate and work towards common goals. Just try to imagine how difficult it would have been to create states, or churches, or legal systems if we could speak only about things that really exist, such as rivers, trees and lions.”
“Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths. …There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside of the common imagination of human beings.”
So, remember, Outfront, Lamar, Clear Channel, etc., only exist because we all agree that they exist. Johnsen, are you crazy? Well, put it this way. Louis XVI thought the French Monarchy existed…until it didn’t.
https://youtu.be/OUYziiWiW2w?si=o90Y00Ws8NP1BkxT (how about those first licks!)
And I leave you with this, which, while it may seem like a non-sequitur, is perfectly related, particularly for the 4th of July:
(Taken from George Washington’s farewell address…the entirety of which can be found here: https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/Washingtons_Farewell_Address.pdf)
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
There are many, many out there…But I will leave you with this:
Securities transacted through StillPoint Capital Member firm FINRA/SiPC
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