A Huge Amount of Financial Folly The Wall Street Journal As house prices fall, a huge amount of financial folly is being exposed. You only learn who has been swimming naked when the tide goes out -- and what we are witnessing at some of our largest financial institutions is an ugly sight.
Folly in Wonderland The New York Times The billionaire investor Warren E. Buffett disclosed Friday that he had earned profits for shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway by speculating in the Brazilian currency, the real, and by buying a large stake in a French pharmaceutical company, Sanofi-Aventis.
The Folly of Harry's Afghan Farce The Scotsman Prince Harry was never going to regarded as a fully deployable officer, which begs the question why he was accepted into the army in the first place. It is difficult to believe that everybody involved lacked the foresight which would have prevented the inevitable farce we have just witnessed.
March 05, 2008
"What on Earth were they thinking?"
That question seems to come up a lot.
Noted historian Barbara Tuchman sets out to find an answer in "The March of Folly," a review of some of the most boneheaded moves in history.
She begins with a useful definition of terms. "Folly," she says, is "pursuit of policy contrary to self-interest." The self-destructive nature of the deed also must be evident - and pursued - despite clear alternatives. Unfortunately, Tuchman finds no shortage of examples.
Fiction can reflect human character as well as real life. The Trojans had plenty of reason to suspect that the now-infamous horse was some sort of Greek trick. Yet, despite the occasional audible moans of injured or startled soldiers inside, the Trojans insisted on dragging it inside the city walls. They did this partly out of flattery, and partly out of fear of offending Athena, the goddess to whom it was dedicated.
The final push, however, came from a clever bit a reverse psychology. A captured "spy" - actually a plant - suggested that the Greeks had deliberately built the horse so that it would not fit through the city gates, thus embarrassing the Trojans. Their response? Don't tell us what we can't do!
Fast-forward to the Renaissance, when a string of corrupt Popes pursued a course seemingly designed to promote widespread Protestant rebellion. The Pontiffs, many recruited from the venal Borgia Dynasty, shook down their flock for every florin, encouraged murder and outright warfare, ignored every earnest call for reform, and often conducted themselves with a carnal vigor that would make Hugh Hefner blush.
The apex may well have been the 1501 "Ballet of Chestnuts," in which Pope Alexander VI hosted a Vatican orgy that featured 50 paid courtesans. Prizes went to the guest who ravished the most of them. Tuchman suggests that the Popes were too confident in the power of the Church, and too oblivious, to contemplate any long-term consequences.
Looking at Colonial America she argues that Britain actually caused the American Revolution. The Crown enacted the Stamp Act and other tariffs to solve its short-term financial problems, despite the fact that it would most certainly lead to rebellion.
"The English could not visualize Americans in terms of equality," she writes. "The attitude was a sense of superiority so dense as to be impenetrable. A feeling of this kind leads to ignorance of the world."
Indeed, contemporary English newspapers often referred to the Colonists as "a mongrel breed of Irish, Scotch and German leavened with convicts and outcasts."
Is it any wonder America turned to armed rebellion?
British arrogance also led military commanders to consistently underestimate the Colonist's potential on the battlefield, despite clear warnings that England could not succeed militarily on such a vast and unruly continent so far from home. British pride also derailed any hope of a truce that would have preserved some role for England in the newly independent Colonies.
"The pride and vanity of that nation is a disease," wrote John Adams. "It is a delirium; it has been flattered and inflamed so long by themselves and others that it perverts everything."
Tuchman goes on to apply her well-reasoned folly arguments to Vietnam, but that wound may still be too fresh. I'll leave it to you to find modern examples of the ongoing march of folly, and share them here at the Eye.
Yorktown Is Won PBS.org In a stunning reversal of fortune that may signal the end of fighting in the American colonies, Charles Lord Cornwallis today signed orders surrendering his British Army to a combined French and American force outside the Virginia tobacco port of Yorktown.
The Death of Pope Alexander VI EyeWitness to History By the dawn of the Renaissance, the mission of the papacy had been corrupted by the conflict between its sacred duties as the Vicar of Christ and its temporal responsibilities as head of the Papal States. This was not the papacy's finest hour and Pope Alexander VI epitomizes this corruption.
Was There a Trojan War? Archaeology Despite assumptions to the contrary, archaeological work of the new Troy project has not been performed for the purpose of understanding Homer's Iliad or the Trojan War. For the past 16 years, more than 350 scholars, scientists, and technicians from nearly 20 countries have been collaborating on the excavations at the site in northwestern Turkey.
I am often asked to check a box to designate my ethnicity or gender.
I assume this informati...
March 05, 2008 12:40 PM
What was the greatest human folly of all time?
25% 25% 25% 0% 25%
As for modern Occidental folly, America is the British Empire by extension, which is the Roman Empire by extension... and here we are.
I suppose it will all go up in smoke one day... if anyone is planning to play violin on this occasion, I may contribute a few mandolin chops. Preferably in the key of "A."
thecatalyst said...
I am often asked to check a box to designate my ethnicity or gender.
I assume this information is tabulated and used by a government beaurucrat somewhere to devise a program whose end result is supposed to be making sure that ethnicity and gender do not matter.
more on the honor rollATE was the spirit (daimona) of delusion, infatuation, blind folly, rash action and reckless impulse who led men down the path to ruin.
The list is endless of men and civilizations, affected by some sort of "blind folly". Yes colonial Americans took advantage of the folly that British government was displaying, because they invisioned the future of todays America. With help from militia they defeated the British government. Passing on some folly experiences of our own.
I believe that folly is nothing more than a fancy word for mistake, a mistake with out any reasoning. A vicious cycle that will always come upon any man or country because of blind power and hungry for more of it! Reckless impulse and infatuation as the greek god ATE foresaw so many centuries ago!