CHAPTER 4: The DEMOCRATIC (R)EVOLUTION We are better than we realize we are. For the first time, we can now create institutions of governance that elicit our best. Copyright 2026 by Paul L. LaClair
Value for Sunday of Week 34 in the season of Interlude
Being Assertive
Throughout our lives, we assert ourselves – we do things.
- Cooking is about passion, so it may look slightly temperamental in a way that it’s too assertive to the naked eye. [attributed to Gordon Ramsay]
- Only a dynamic and strategically-minded America, together with a unifying Europe, can jointly promote a larger and more vital West, one capable of acting as a responsible partner to the rising and increasingly assertive East. [Zbigniew Brzezinski]
- If universities are going to behave like a cartel, government must be assertive in standing up for consumers. [attributed to Nick Boles]
Often distinguished from aggressiveness, assertiveness is standing up for yourself without being abusive or overbearing. Most of the values in our model are assertive, for the simple reason that ethics requires action. This week, we explore components of assertiveness.
Real
True Narratives
Oprah Winfrey personifies assertiveness. Born into poverty and after becoming a teenaged single mother at age 14, she landed her first job as a local newscaster at age 19. She then became an actress and a spectacularly successful talk show host and cultural icon.
- Jennifer Harris and Elwood Watson, The Oprah Phenomenon (The University Press of Kentucky, 2007).
- Katherine E. Krohn, Oprah Winfrey (Lerner Publications, 2002).
- Kitty Kelley, Oprah: A Biography (Crown Archetype, 2010).
Other narratives on assertiveness:
- K.N.O. Dharmadasa, Language, Religion, and Ethnic Assertiveness: The Growth of Sinhalese Nationalism in Sri Lanka (University of Michigan Press, 1993).
- Jehanne Wake, Sisters of Fortune: America’s Caton Sisters at Home and Abroad (Touchstone Book/Simon & Schuster, 2011): their lives may not exemplify social commitment but this multi-biography is a “comprehensive account of four strong-willed sisters’ adventures in ‘another world’ they confidently made their own.”
- Becca Rothfeld: All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess (Metropolitan Books, 2024): “. . . is splendidly immodest in its neo-Romantic agenda — to tear down minimalism and puritanism in its many current varieties — but . . . she makes her strongest case in her essays’ very form, a carnival of high-low allusion and analysis.”
On the difference between healthy assertiveness and unhealthy aggressiveness:
- Gregg Jones, Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the Rise and Fall of America’s Imperial Dream (New American Library, 2012): a book about “the soul of the United States . . . the story of what happened when a powerful young country and its zealous young president were forced to face the high cost of their ambitions.”
Technical and Analytical Readings
- Randy Paterson, The Assertiveness Workbook: How to Express Your Ideas and Stand Up for Yourself At Work and In Relationships (MUF Books, 2000).
- Robert E. Alberti and Michael Emmons, Your Perfect Right: Assertiveness and Equality in Your Life and Relationships (Impact Publishing, 2008).
- Robert Bolton, People Skills: How to Assert Yourself, Listen to Others, and Resolve Conflicts (Touchstone, 1986).
- Sharon Anthony Bower and Gordon H. Bower, Asserting Yourself: A Practical Guide for Positive Change (Addison Wesley Publishing Company, 1976).
- Sherrie Mansfield Vavrichek, The Guide to Compassionate Assertiveness: How to Express Your Needs and Deal with Conflict While Keeping a Kind Heart (New Harbinger Publications, 2012).
- James V. Potter, Assertiveness, Individuation & Autonomy (AFS Publishing Co., 2007).
- Susan M. Heighway and Susan Kidd Webster, S.T.A.R.S.: A Social Skills Training Guide for Teaching Assertiveness, Relationship Skills, and Sexual Awareness (Future Horizons, 2007).
- Richard Pfeiffer, Relationships: Assertiveness Skills (Growth Publishing, 2010).
- Jenny Moon, Achieving Success Through Academic Assertiveness: Real life strategies for today’s higher education students (Routledge, 2010).
- Jeff Davidson, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Assertiveness (ALPHA, 1997).
- Max A. Eggert, Assertiveness Pocketbook (Management Pocketbooks, 2011).
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
Poetry
Speak, your lips are free.
Speak, it is your own tongue.
Speak, it is your own body.
Speak, your life is still yours.
See how in the blacksmith's shop
The flame burns wild, the iron glows red;
The locks open their jaws,
And every chain begins to break.
Speak, this brief hour is long enough
Before the death of body and tongue:
Speak, 'cause the truth is not dead yet,
Speak, speak, whatever you must speak.
[Faiz Ahmed Faiz, “Speak”]
. . . being American is more than a pride we inherit.
It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.
[from Amanda Gorman, “The Hill We Climb”]
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
The trumpet is an assertive-sounding instrument, with its brassy sound in a high register. Top classical trumpeters, with links to their releases, include Maurice André, Håkan Hardenberger, Sergei Nakariakov, Alison Balsom, Tine Thing Helseth, Timofei Dokschitzer, and Philip Smith. Here are some composers of trumpet music, and some of their works:
- Tomaso Albinoni: Trumpet Concerto in B-flat Major; Trumpet Concerto in D minor
- Jean-Baptiste Arban: Carnival of Venice; Fantaisie brillante; trumpet duets
- Alexander Arutiunian: Trumpet Concerto
- Herbert L. Clarke: The Maid of the Mist; The Debutante (Caprice brilliant); various pieces
- Johann Friedrich Fasch: Trumpet Concerto in D major
- Franz Joseph Haydn: Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major
- Michael Haydn: Trumpet Concerto in D Major; Trumpet Concerto in C Major
- Johann Nepomuk Hummel: Trumpet Concerto
- Johann Melchior Molter: Trumpet Concertos
- Leopold Mozart: Trumpet Concerto in D Major
- Johann Baptist Georg Neruda: Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major
- Anthony Plog: Trumpet Concerto
- Henry Purcell: pieces for trumpet
- Franz Xaver Richter: Trumpet Concerto in D Major
- Johann Stamitz: Trumpet Concerto in D Major
- Georg Philipp Telemann: trumpet concertos
- Giuseppe Torelli: trumpet concertos
- Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto for 2 Trumpets
Similarly, the brass quintet (two trumpets, French horn, trombone and tuba) has its own distinctive character. Top quintets include:
- Wien-Berlin Brass Quintett, with its playlists;
- Empire Brass, with its playlists;
- Boston Brass, with its playlists;
- Atlantic Brass Quintet, with its playlists;
- Canadian Brass, with its playlists.
Practically any jazz trumpeter could be selected to illustrate the value of assertiveness. Roy Hargrove struck a balance between the high-octane energy of Maynard Ferguson and others, and something less bold than a trumpet. His web biography aptly describes him as a “briskly assertive soloist with a tone that could evoke either burnished steel or a soft, golden glow . . .” His playing was easy on the ear and the soul. Here is a link to his playlists.
Other compositions, not for trumpet:
- Pianist Vera Gornostaeva played Mussorgsky’s Pictures At an Exhibition with exceptional force and command, and brought a similar approach to Rachmaninoff’s Preludes. Of her performance of “Pictures,” Vassily Primakov says: “She does not just perceive this piece as a collection of pictures or little pieces, she sees it as a big, epic saga. Her sound is huge and orchestral, but never harsh. ‘Gnomes’ is particularly interesting. She plays it differently, almost jazzlike, treating it more like a 20th-century work. Her choices of dynamics in that piece differ from every other performance I have heard. Technically she owned that piece from beginning to end.”
- Raga Shankara is a Hindustani classical raag for late evening. “You wake up from a stupor or disturbed state of mind upon hearing this Raag which implies as surge of the life force with the sharp rather bold pronunciation of notes in this melody.” Performances are by Uday Bhalwalkar, Bhimsen Joshi, Ajoy Chakraborty, Kumar Gandharva, Kishori Amonkar, and Gajanabuwa Joshi.
- Gordon Jacob, Flute Concerto (1952) (approx. 21’) “is full of melodic gems for the flute . . .”
- Vittorio Giannini, Piano Concerto (1935) (approx. 41’) is “40 minutes of sweeping melodies, harmonically colorful sequences, acres of virtuosity”.
- Mieczysław Weinberg, Piano Quintet, Op. 18 (1944) (approx. 45-47’) (list of recorded performances): “The first movement opens with a haunting motif introduced by the piano, and provides most of the thematic material for the entire quintet, which is written on an almost symphonic scale.”
- Ernst Bacon, Piano Trio No. 2 (1987) (approx. 31’)
- Friedrich Gernsheim, Piano Concerto in C minor, Op. 16 (1868) (approx. 28’)
- Claude Balbastre, Pièces de Clavecin (1759) (approx. 67-96’) “grabs us firmly by our collar, fixes us with its powerful eyes, and makes us attend to it.”
- Helen Grime, Violin Concerto (2016) (approx. 22’): The soloist does not wait for an invitation to speak; she enters at full throttle, and maintains an intensity that refuses to be dampened by the complex, often volatile orchestral environment.
Perhaps “assertive” does not adequately describe Wilhelm Furtwängler’s style of conducting. He led great orchestras in rehearsal and performance of grand and majestic works. Rising to fame during the Nazi era in Germany, he collaborated with Hitler’s regime far too much in the opinion of many people. Still, his brilliance as a conductor is a matter of consensus among musicologists and music aficionados. “Consumed by an exalted belief in the power of music, and preternaturally able to convince listeners of that power, Furtwängler conducted Beethoven and Brahms, Bruckner and Wagner, with proprietary authority, as if he alone could reveal their deepest psychological, even spiritual, secrets. Sometimes it sounds like he could. With his expressive, flexible approach to tempo and dynamics, Furtwängler breathed the structure of a whole piece into each of its measures, while making each measure sound as if improvised.” During World War II, Furtwängler seems to have at least begun to understand the unfolding tragedy of Nazism, and was bold enough to hint at it in his conducting. The performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony that he conducted in Berlin in March 1942 practically screams of the unfolding tragedy, as though he and the orchestra members were crying “stop! stop!”. “Like all truly great artistic achievements, the intensity and conviction of Furtwängler's wartime work was distilled from hard-earned experience. . . Furtwängler endured such extreme torment and pain that he was able to fully identify with the profound suffering from which the greatest composers wrested their most heartfelt and enduring masterpieces. Under pressure designed to crush any sensitive artist, he transmuted his distress into a vision of unprecedented insight and power.” He is the main subject of books by Sam H. Shirakawa, and Roger Allen. Furtwängler’s essays have been collected in book form by Robert Taylor. Here is a video of the maestro conducting in 1950, an interview from 1951, and a 1968 documentary film. His playlists are vast, as were his talents and his ambitions.
Conductor Albert Coates was known for being bold, assertive, powerful and dynamic. “Coates was something of a speed demon, a high-voltage conductor who prized excitement and wide contrasts. It can become overbearing at times, but when his style meets congenial material, sparks fly.” Here are links to his playlists.
Valery Gergiev’s displays an “intense, visceral style of conducting . . .”. Here are links to his playlists, and to Gergiev conducting live.
Albums:
- Dave Holland Octet, “Pathways” (2010) (75’) presents hard-driving but well-ordered contemporary jazz.
- Josh Berman & His Gang, “There Now” (2012) (57’): “(Berman's) gang of young Chicago improvisers weaves in and out of the 1920s, inserting free jazz passages and improvised duos that could not be anticipated in the early part of 20th century.”
- James Kitchman, “First Quartet” (2022) (60’) “is a remarkably mature first album that features intelligent, multi-faceted compositions.”
- Dieuf-Dieul de Thiès, “Dieuf-Dieul de Thiès” (2024) (50’): “Mbalax rhythms underpin split-second horn blasts, hypnotic, stoned discharges of Seck’s fuzz-drenched lead guitar, and Sarr’s deep, soaring vocals.”
- Clare Farr, “Loudmouthed Beauty” (2022) (60’) is an album of bold strokes on a trombone.
Music: songs and other short pieces
- Billy Joel, "My Life" (lyrics)
- Pink, "Raise Your Glass" (lyrics)
- Bon Jovi, "It's My Life" (lyrics)
Visual Arts
- Mark Rothko, Four Darks in Red (1958)
- Mark Rothko, White, Red, on Yellow (1958)
- Mark Rothko, No. 9 (Dark Over Light Earth) (1954)
- Wassily Kandinsky, Asserting (1926)
- Diego Rivera, The Painter, the Sculptor and the Architect (1923-28)
