The Wisdom Of The Greater Fool
Who is the Greater Fool? The term was originally coined in stock market analysis and had a rotatory connotation. Investors will y stocks of dubious value in the hope at there will be a Greater Fool on whom ey can offload their investment at an en higher price. Eventually, a succeson of Greater Fools will drive prices so viably high as to create a bubble which rsts and leads to economic meltdown. However, a character in the evasion series, The Newsroom, has en a new twist to the term. According her, by putting a greater value on meting which the world of common nise regards as being of little or no sequence, the Greater Fool enriches our lives by lifting us above the bitter of fact and the mundane and ring us a glimpse of what lies beyond horizon of everyday consciousness. Poets and artists are Greater Fools. are spiritual masters, scientists and philanthropists. In Darwinian terms, the Greater Fool would be the mutant which, by being out of genetic step with others of its species, could prove to be an evolutionary breakthrough. A real life example of the Greater Fool was Jonas Salk, the inventor of the polio vaccine, who refused to patent it thereby losing untold millions by way of royalties which would have accrued to him-because he wanted the whole world to benefit from his invention. Infection, the most celebrated Greater Fool is Cervantes's great mock hero Don Quixote. the delusional knight-errant who tilted against windmills which in his crazed imagination were evil giants which it was his duty to slay Clad in his rusty and tree tarnished armour, riding his scrawny mare, Rosin ante, followed by his faithful squire, Sancho Penza, astride a donkey, and serenading the bedraggled whorl whom he calls Dulcimer, Don Quixote is a figure of ridicule, a comical caricature. But in his futile foolishness he assumes heroic stature, for he persists, against all reason, to see the world not as it is but as it ought to be. He refuses to accept what is real because he yearns for that which lies above and beyond the consensus-. al conspiracy that society calls reality, and condemns as madness any challenge to its predominance. In that he dares to dream the impossible dream, to reach the unreachable star, Don Quixote is indeed mad. It is a madness he shares with the Sufi mystic who, intoxicated with the wine of divine love, sings of the rapturous union which transcends all barriers and divisions of the mind so that Creator and created become one. In marketing terms, the Greater Fool is the ultimate disruptive innovator, the greatest risk taking venture capitalist who dares to bet against overwhelming odds and in doings extends the boundaries of what convention has established as the realm of the possiblIn this sense, the very failure of the Greater Fool is a victory. In his vain glorious attempts to assume the role of aepic hero, Don Quixote is a laughable failure. But like the shield in which he sees a reflection of himself, his failure reflects a triumph of the ideal of chivalrus heroism, impossible though its actuaattainment might remain. The protagonist of Hemingway's The Old Manand the Sea epitomises thespirit of heroism fated to be doomed: It can, and will, be defeated, but it cannot be destroyed. It is the quest for a Holy Grail that matters, more than the unrealisable object of that quest. In his ceaseless search for knowledge, Socrates said that hewas the most knowledgeable ofmen because he alone realised that he knew nothing. That is the vision, and wisdom, given to us by the Greater Fool
DISCLAIMER:
The views expressed in the Article above are Jug Suraiya kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it.
Courtesy : Jug Suraiya Speaking Tree ,Times of India
The Wisdom Of The Greater Fool
Who is the Greater Fool? The term was originally coined in stock market analysis and had a rotatory connotation. Investors will y stocks of dubious value in the hope at there will be a Greater Fool on whom ey can offload their investment at an en higher price. Eventually, a succeson of Greater Fools will drive prices so viably high as to create a bubble which rsts and leads to economic meltdown. However, a character in the evasion series, The Newsroom, has en a new twist to the term. According her, by putting a greater value on meting which the world of common nise regards as being of little or no sequence, the Greater Fool enriches our lives by lifting us above the bitter of fact and the mundane and ring us a glimpse of what lies beyond horizon of everyday consciousness. Poets and artists are Greater Fools. are spiritual masters, scientists and philanthropists. In Darwinian terms, the Greater Fool would be the mutant which, by being out of genetic step with others of its species, could prove to be an evolutionary breakthrough. A real life example of the Greater Fool was Jonas Salk, the inventor of the polio vaccine, who refused to patent it thereby losing untold millions by way of royalties which would have accrued to him-because he wanted the whole world to benefit from his invention. Infection, the most celebrated Greater Fool is Cervantes's great mock hero Don Quixote. the delusional knight-errant who tilted against windmills which in his crazed imagination were evil giants which it was his duty to slay Clad in his rusty and tree tarnished armour, riding his scrawny mare, Rosin ante, followed by his faithful squire, Sancho Penza, astride a donkey, and serenading the bedraggled whorl whom he calls Dulcimer, Don Quixote is a figure of ridicule, a comical caricature. But in his futile foolishness he assumes heroic stature, for he persists, against all reason, to see the world not as it is but as it ought to be. He refuses to accept what is real because he yearns for that which lies above and beyond the consensus-. al conspiracy that society calls reality, and condemns as madness any challenge to its predominance. In that he dares to dream the impossible dream, to reach the unreachable star, Don Quixote is indeed mad. It is a madness he shares with the Sufi mystic who, intoxicated with the wine of divine love, sings of the rapturous union which transcends all barriers and divisions of the mind so that Creator and created become one. In marketing terms, the Greater Fool is the ultimate disruptive innovator, the greatest risk taking venture capitalist who dares to bet against overwhelming odds and in doings extends the boundaries of what convention has established as the realm of the possiblIn this sense, the very failure of the Greater Fool is a victory. In his vain glorious attempts to assume the role of aepic hero, Don Quixote is a laughable failure. But like the shield in which he sees a reflection of himself, his failure reflects a triumph of the ideal of chivalrus heroism, impossible though its actuaattainment might remain. The protagonist of Hemingway's The Old Manand the Sea epitomises thespirit of heroism fated to be doomed: It can, and will, be defeated, but it cannot be destroyed. It is the quest for a Holy Grail that matters, more than the unrealisable object of that quest. In his ceaseless search for knowledge, Socrates said that hewas the most knowledgeable ofmen because he alone realised that he knew nothing. That is the vision, and wisdom, given to us by the Greater Fool
DISCLAIMER:
The views expressed in the Article above are Jug Suraiya kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it.
Courtesy : Jug Suraiya Speaking Tree ,Times of India