What we've seen so far are the operations of three forces, or classes of force, on the motion of culture. The inertial, the entropic, and the metacultural forces. Those are daunting words, but I hope by this point you have an appreciation for what they mean. The inertial forces tend to bring about cultural continuity. The entropic forces tend to change culture, although, possibly in random ways. So far we've seen metaculture, or reflective culture or thought as culture, as a force bringing about change. It can also be used to restrain or reverse change, as we'll see later. But let's now complete the story of Akhenaten. Yes, he transformed ancient Egyptian culture during his 17 years or so of reign. A display on our Amarna gallery here at Penn includes the statement, quote, all aspects of society reflected his significant changes, unquote. But just how successful was he really? There was apparently discontent in the kingdom even before Akhenaten died. It seems also according to my Egyptologist colleagues here at Penn that all religious beliefs and practices had never been fully expunged. For example, many of the old gods were still represented in small amulets found in households, like this one of the god Bes we mentioned earlier. While people were undoubtedly aware of Akhenaten's decrees, they also resisted the change. When Akhenaten died, he was succeeded by Tutankhamen, who changed his name to Tutankhamen. He's the one we call King Tut. About ten years ago, there was a major exhibit about King Tut that toured around the world. You might have seen it or maybe heard about it. The curator of that exhibit was Dr. David Silverman, whom I mentioned before. He has the office a couple of doors down from me. Anyway, the new Pharaoh was actually a young boy at that time. And incapable of exercising any real power which lay rather in the hands of his elder advisers. They began to reintroduce many of the older traditions and to reverse the changes that have taken place under Akhenaten. In fact, by 20 or so years after Akhenaten's death, the Egyptian looked not so very different from the way it had been before he took office. The new monotheistic religion he introduced disappeared. It was replaced by the older beliefs and practices surrounding multiple diaries. The art styles reverted. The city of Armana he had build was abandoned. It's as if Akhenaten's reign had been swallowed up in quicksand, leaving few traces. Indeed, even his name and that of his immediate successor were removed from lists of the pharaohs. Insofar as official records were concerned, they had never existed. The power of the habitual inertial culture in ancient Egypt eventually reasserted itself and went out. There's a cautionary tale here about leadership, and we can find examples in the modern corporate world of just this sort of process. One is Ron Johnson, who earn the BA from Stanford and an MBA from Harvard. He made his mark in the business world with his extraordinary accomplishments at Apple Computer. He was hired on there in the 2000s as Vice President for Retail Sales. He is credited with developing the hugely successful Apple stores, which brought in more revenue per square foot of floor space than any other successful retail outlet at the time. People seeme to like to hang out in Apple stores. And also, coincidentally, to buy the products they sold there. Johnson is also credited with developing the so-called Genius Bar, really a tech support operation inside the Apple Store, where the techs help you to solve problems. The concept of a Genius Bar had great appeal. I remember my daughter and her friends when they were young saying that they wanted to work as geniuses at the Genius Bar. Truthfully, the couple of times I visited the Genius Bar, I found genius to be in fairly short supply. In any case, as the result of this huge success at Apple, Johnson was hired as CEO of JCPenney, a clothing retailer. Their profits were declining and he was brought in to turn things around. And that's what he tried to do by changing the culture of JCPenney. He wanted to make it more like the Apple Store. He did away with discount coupons, apparently not fully appreciated that JCPenny's customers love these. They were bargain huntersm and they liked the thrill of the chase after a good bargain. He wanted the stores to be fun places to visit and hang out while simultaneously buying merchandise, just like the Apple store, but this was not the JCPenny way. Maybe you're beginning to sense the parallel here to Akhenaten. As CEO, Johnson was able to make pronouncements and give orders to effect change, just as the Pharaoh was. But as in Akhenaten's case, the changes went strongly against the grain of the inertial culture. Of course in Johnson's case, the timeline was hugely accelerated. Whereas Akhenaten ruled for some 17 years, Johnson lasted some 17 months. He was dismissed in April of 2013 after what one observed, Jeff Mackey, referred to as, quote, one of the most aggressively unsuccessful tenures in retail history, unquote. In the next lecture we'll ask why things didn't work out for Johnson.
