barbara tuchman: practicing history with adjectives & lists & clear-headedness (468)
Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed.
—barbara tuchman, patron saint of the card catalog
excerpts from chapter one of the march of folly: pursuit of policy contrary to self-interest
my transcribed notes — rk
a phenonenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests. mankind, it seems, makes apoorer performance of government than of almost any other human activity. in this sphere, wisdom, which may be defined as the exercise of judgment acting on experiece, common sense and available information, is less operative and more frustrated than it should be. why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests? . . .
elsewhere than in government man has accomplished marvels: invented the means in our lifetime to leave the earth and voyage to the moon; in the past, harnessed wind and electricity, raised earthbound stones into soaring cathedrals, woven silk brocades out of the spinnings of a worm, constructed the instruments of music, derived motor power from steam, controlled oreliminated diseases, pushed back the north sea and created land in its place, classified the forms of nature, penetrated the mysteries of the cosmos. “while all other sciences have advanced,” confessed our second president, john adams, “government is at a stand; litter better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.”
misgovernment is of four kinds, often in combination. they are:
1) tyranny or opression, of which history provides so many well-known examples that they do not need citing;
2) excessive ambition, such as athens’ attempted conquest of sicily in the peoplonnesian war, philip ii’’ [attempted] of england via the armada, germany’s twice-attempted rule of edurope by a self-conceived master race, japan’s bid for an empire of asia;
3) incompetence or decadence, as in the case of the late roman empire, the last romanovs and the last imperial dynasty of china; and finally
4) folly or perversity.
this book [the march of folly] is concerned with the last in aspecific manifestation; that is, the pursuit of policy contrary to the self-interest of the constituency or state involved. self-interest is whatever conduces to the welfare or advantage of the body being governed; folly is a policy that in these terms is counter-productive.
to qualify as folly for this inquiry, the policy adopted must meet three criteria.
1. it must have been perceived as counter-productive in its own time, not merely by hindsight . . .
2. a feasible alternative course of avtion must have been available
3. to remove the problem from personality, . . . the policy in question should be that of a group, not an individual ruler, and should persist beyond any one political lifetime . . .
folly’s appearance is independent of era or locality; it is timeless and universal, although the habits and beliefs of a particular time and place determine the form it takes. it is unrealted to type of regime: monarchy, oligarchy and democracy produce it equally. nor is it peculiar to nation or class . . .
it may be asked why, since folly or perversity is inherent in individuals, should we expect anything else of government? the reason for concern is that folly in govenment has more impact on more people than individual follies, and therefore governments have a greater duty to act according t reason. . . .
wooden-headedness, the source of self-deception, is a factor that plays a remarkably large role in government. it consists of assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. it is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts. . . . wooden-headedness is also the refusal to benefit from experience . . .
a principle that emerges in the cases so far mentioned is that folly is a child of power. we all know, from unending repetitions of lor acton’s dictum, that power corrupts. we are less aware that it breeds folly; that the power to command frequently causes failure to think; that the responsibility of power often fades as its exercise augments. the overall responsibility of power is to govern as reasonably as possible in the interest of the state and its citizens. a duty in that process is to keep well-informed, to heed information, to keep mind and judgment open and to resist the insidious spell of wooden - headedness. if the mind is open enough to perceive that a given policy is harming rather thanserving self-nterest, and self-confident enough to acknowledge it, and wise enough to reverse it, that is a summit in the art of government. . . .
winston churchill: the scaffolding of rhetoric (470)
richard mitchell: the underground grammarian, language philospher & first blogger (469)
barbara tuchman: practicing history with adjectives & lists & clear-headedness (468)
roger zelazny: experiments in form, voice & inner mythologies (467)
jack kerouac’s spontaneous prose method #6: “be crazy dumbsaint of the mind” (467)