Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Wisest Fool
The Economist has launched a competition in search of the Wisest Fool :Today we are after that rarer oxymoron: the wisest fool. He or she must be fundamentally an idiot, but a shrewd or cunning one. Candidates need not inhabit Christendom, but they must be alive, or have been in the past 50 years.
The "wisest fool" originally a term coined to describe James I of England, who in the words of Walter Scott:
He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom...He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public
labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated...He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language...
Sounds like a familiar description? So doors are open to nominate candidates who are alive or have been over the last 50 years.
I guess my contenders would be the obvious choice of G dubya Bush, depicted as the a monkey in Steve Bell's cartoons, yet leader of the biggest global power today! Second candidate, Arnold Shwarzenegger? Third maybe, Mugabe. Closer to home, I think our very own Amir, sorry King of Bah-a-rain, would make a good contender by certainly fitting the cunning and shrewd requirements after pulling off the Mithaq scam and the ensuing Consitutional_Coup!! And how could I forget....Colonel Gaddafi, of course!
Any other nominations are most welcome!
Read or Post a Comment
k3k3k3
Posted by Susu
And the winners are in equal third place, Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II; in second place, Yasser Arafat; and in first place, Yogi Berra.
I don't agree with this at all... its a matter of opinion I guess, and the Economist Editor is the one that matters the most.
Posted by Bahrania