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!

Posted by BB @ 1/11/2005 07:04:00 PM

Read or Post a Comment

k3k3k3 

Posted by Susu

Posted by Anonymous Anonymous @ 1/12/2005 03:19:00 AM #
 

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

Posted by Anonymous Anonymous @ 1/28/2005 04:48:00 PM #
 
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