I’ve never had great success, which is lucky, because I have seen it ruin many previously excellent writers and thinkers. This is an age-old phenomenon, but it has got worse in our era.
The best business nowadays is selling to the 1 per cent. A caste of pundits has accordingly arisen to supply them with thoughts, or at least talking points. These pundits make decent money themselves, especially on the speakers’ circuit, which is now the place where original thinkers go to die. Here are some case studies:
You are a historian. You spend years in the archives producing good books. You emerge blinking into the light, turn out to be fluent on television, and pretty soon are getting $25,000 to pontificate in Dubai on “What’s next for China?” (The 0.1 per cent want to know the future, because that’s where the money is.) When you aren’t being an oracle, you are explaining why you were right five years ago. Eventually you realise you aren’t a historian any more. You’re a content provider who plays a parody of himself on TV.