And it is still palpable

Jan Henrik Swahn

Chapter 10 in Leadership, Art, and Responsibility, 2026, pp 75-82 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter explores the unsettling and transformative force of the Shibboleth encounters as witnessed and reflected upon by writer Jan Henrik Swahn, who participated as the programme's discussion leader. He offers an evocative account of the performances and describes how the artistic form itself contributed to the profound effects observed among the participants. Through radical literary and musical juxtapositions – from brutal modern narratives set against sacred love poetry to Etty Hillesum's affirmation of life placed beside a Nazi's cold analysis of gassing as a method of killing – Swahn traces how Shibboleth dismantles habitual defences and exposes participants to profound inner conflict. He shows how these collisions do not offer clarity but fracture it, compelling leaders to confront their own ambivalence, their longing for meaning, and their resistance to being moved. The aesthetic experience becomes an ethical summons: participants feel provoked, disoriented, even violated, as they struggle to hold incompatible truths within a single emotional horizon. Swahn's testimony reveals how Shibboleth destabilises the desire for coherence and instead awakens a heightened receptivity – a willingness to bear contradiction, to acknowledge vulnerability, and to encounter the Other without refuge in explanatory frameworks. In the end, he suggests that the lingering after-effect of Shibboleth is not resolution but presence: a sharpened awareness of responsibility, a deeper attunement to human dignity, and the quiet yet persistent transformation that unfolds when art refuses to leave us untouched. This altered presence subtly reshapes how leaders listen, judge, and assume responsibility in moments of strain.

Keywords: Shibboleth Experiment; Aesthetic; Ethical Encounter; Literary Juxtaposition; Inner Conflict; Emotional Resistance; Contradiction; Human Dignity; Transformation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781049403991
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