Why did the Trojans fall for such a seemingly obvious ruse as a wooden horse housing an invading army? Why did the Renaissance popes persist in corrupt behavior — ranging from rampantly promiscuous parties to using the papacy as a tool for self enrichment — that ignored growing resentment amongst the people? Why did the British act to turn their colonists into rebels and instigate a war which could never achieve Parliaments initial financial objectives? Why did America back a decrepit regime in a civil war following up on a colonial catastrophe half a world away in Vietnam?
Tuchman is a wonderful writer, and her insights into those questions in “The March of Folly” have stood the test of time.
"In the first stage, mental standstill fixes the principles and boundaries governing a political problem. In the second stage, when dissonances and failing function begin to appear, the initial principles rigidify. This is the period when, if wisdom were operative, re-examination and re-thinking and a change of course are possible, but they are as rare as rubies in a backyard. Rigidifying leads to increase of investment and the need to protect egos; policy founded upon error multiplies, never retreats. The greater the investment and the more involved in it the sponsor's ego, the more unacceptable is disengagement. In the third stage, pursuit of failure enlarges the damages until it causes the fall of Troy, the defection from the Papacy, the loss of a trans-Atlantic empire, the classic humiliation in Vietnam."
With that framework of folly in mind, many recent events come to mind such as the attempt at nation building in Iraq, the bailouts in 2008 financial crisis and many bizarre turns in US politics. For example, why despite rare bipartisan consensus on the need to build infrastructure, billions upon billions in federal funding, and the incredible difficulty in building infrastructure (or too often really anything in this country), does bipartisan permitting reform languish in perpetual Congressional purgatory? Tuchman provides more relevant insight from past follies:
"Disregard of the movements and sentiments developing around them was a primary folly. They were deaf to disaffection, blind to the alternative ideas it gave rise to, blandly impervious to challenge, unconcerned by the dismay at their misconduct and the rising wrath at their misgovernment, fixed in refusal to change, almost stupidly stubborn in maintaining a corrupt existing system. They could not change it because they were part of it, grew out of it, depended on it."
It’s an open question where folly will continue its march through history. Some paths seem highly probable, however, to yours truly at least. The US has made a hard pivot away from the post WWII international order in favor of a new, yet to be fully defined direction that echoes past isolationism. The ongoing US national identity crisis, along with honestly psychotic discourse that pervades the everything everywhere all at once mess of media and mangled social norms, will continue.
Everything but the kitchen sink from the administrative state dating back to FDR will be deconstructed, at least attempted to federally, leaving a power vacuum for enterprising local leaders. The parallels between todays era and the late nineteenth century gilded age, complete with growing corruption and public disgust, will intensify. Ambition, a fire that can both burn a rocket to the red planet and scorch our pale blue dot into oblivion, will grow. The world will get weirder and US discourse dumber in the years ahead. At least one thing, though, can be said for certain.
Folly is the child of power, a consequence of the ability of those with the means to make their own reality also the curse of ignoring what actually is going on. As the worlds most powerful nation state and also divided into mutually incomprehensible rigid beliefs of what constitutes reality, the US today offers fertile ground for folly.
Further Reading
The Seventy Percent
Writing in Harpers, Yiyun Li has an excellent essay out about critical inquiry in the current zeitgeist. Titled “The Seventy Percent” the piece really resonated 1) because I have a soft spot for Russian literature and 2) have noticed that every big political movement of the twenty first century has been about a percent. Think about it. There was the 1% with all the wealth. There was the 47% who don’t pay any taxes. Yiyun Li introduces the seventy percent, and not to spoil the conclusion but no it’s not against the thirty percent. Well worth reading!
Solitude and Leadership
William Deresiewicz’s speech Solitude and Leadership given at West Point is one of my all time favorites and has penetrating insights into (hopefully!) avoiding folly in positions of power along with the then ongoing Iraq war.
Finally—and I know I’m on sensitive ground here—look at what happened during the first four years of the Iraq War. We were stuck. It wasn’t the fault of the enlisted ranks or the noncoms or the junior officers. It was the fault of the senior leadership, whether military or civilian or both. We weren’t just not winning, we weren’t even changing direction.
We have a crisis of leadership in America because our overwhelming power and wealth, earned under earlier generations of leaders, made us complacent, and for too long we have been training leaders who only know how to keep the routine going. Who can answer questions, but don’t know how to ask them. Who can fulfill goals, but don’t know how to set them.
I don’t know the details but it seems fitting that Deresiewicz was denied tenure in academia.
The New Caesers
Claire Berlinski provides a much needed global perspective on what we in the US can often view myopically as part of our own special snowflake-ness. Writing about the rise of populist illiberal politicians with common patterns across the planet, Claire provides a useful perspective on this distinctively twenty first century edition of authoritarianism:
For these are inherent in plebiscitarian Caesarism, or so-called “Caesarian democracy,” with its direct appeal to the masses: demagogical slogans; disregard of legality in spite of a professed guardianship of law and order; contempt of political parties and the parliamentary system, of the educated classes and their values; blandishments and vague, contradictory promises for all and sundry; militarism; gigantic, blatant displays and shady corruption. Panem et circenses once more and at the end of the road, disaster.
For those unfamiliar, panem et circenses is Latin for Bread and Circuses.
The Season of Great Works
Writing on November 4th, 2016, Venkatesh Rao called for more ambition regardless of the result:
Whatever the outcome of the election next week, one thing is clear: not since the aftermath of World War II has there been a greater need for Great Works in the world, and people willing and able to take them on.
Lastly, Tuchman's book itself is well worth reading in full. Beyond the aforementioned points, I also really love her take on the need for public leadership that is great at asking good questions and reflective inquiry.
