Icarus Unhinged

Icarus Unhinged

       Hubris is defined per the OED as “Excessive pride or self-confidence.”  It derives from the Greeks, who actually considered it a crime (if only). Generally, it referred to the attitudes and actions of mortals whose unjustified pride and self-assurance led them to “defy the Gods.”  One of the generally proffered examples of hubris as the Greeks regarded it is the mythical story of Icarus.

        The “moral” of the Icarus legend revolves, not around daring to fly, but around ignoring the warning of his father. His father, Daedalus, was the creator of the Labyrinth, a huge maze located under the court of King Minos of Crete, where the Minotaur, (half-man half-bull, all myth) lived. So that the secrets of design of the Labyrinth be kept, Minos had Daedalus and Icarus imprisoned in a tower above his palace. Daedalus managed to create two sets of wings, made of feathers glued together with wax, for himself and his son. He taught Icarus how to fly and warned him not to fly too high, which would cause the wax to melt.  Icarus, however, overconfident and ego driven, ignored his father's warnings, flying higher and higher, until the wax started melting under the scorching sun. His wings dissolved and he fell into the sea and drowned.  This is also the origin of the old adage. “Pride goeth before a fall.”

       Most of such Greek stories are thinly veiled warnings about the dangers of excessive self-confidence and imagined superiority and their poor outcomes.

       In more recent times there is no shortage of examples of such Narcissism (named for another Greek who loved his image a bit too much).  One such is Herbert Hoover, a decent enough man, but one who believed that he could convince a nation, which was beginning to know better, that the economy was just fine, and his administration and current Republican business favoring policies would “abolish poverty.”   

       Four years later Mr. Hoover had to attempt (an effort at which he failed spectacularly) to explain to a nation, now mired deep in the Great Depression,  why it should reelect him, and continue what he had ballyhooed in 1928 as,  “The policies which have made and will make for the prosperity of our country.” Perhaps if he had been more judicious in his first campaign, if he had made the ordinary speeches of the ordinary candidate, his 1932 explanation of the collapse as “due to inexorable economic forces” might have been more plausible,  But in 1928, locked into defending Republican hands off, free for all, policies in financial sectors  he told voters that. “As never before does the keeping of our economic machine in tune depend on wise policies in the administrative side of government.”

     Mr. Hoover, who in 1928 had denounced his unnamed "opponents"—on ephemeral or non-existent scanty evidence—for plotting to introduce state socialism, (sound familiar yet?) was compelled to ask for reelection in 1932 as a reward for his own success in introducing state socialism. He hoped that the Reconstruction Finance Corporation would prove a brighter star in his crown than the Federal Farm Board had. It didn’t. So, the man who promised the abolition of poverty had to ask for another term of office on the ground that “it might have been worse.”

       General of the US Army (yep five stars!)  Douglas MacArthur is a kind of 20th century Icarus. In 1945, at war’s end, he ranked with some of the greatest generals of all time. His masterly amphibious counterstroke at Inchon in 1950, after the North Koreans had overrun virtually the entire south of the peninsula, is a matchless lesson in boldness and surprise. But then, apparently believing that success, and now believing that anything he did was not only right but destined to succeed, he decided to take on China — and thereby his own president, the determined and moral Harry S. Truman. MacArthur’s “wax” melted, and he was fired. The detailed saga of MacArthur and his downfall should be studied at every war college.

       A more recent and somewhat humorous example of hubris is relatively little known but has left us with another name for the condition. In 1995, a man named McArthur Wheeler read an article about how lemon juice could be used as an invisible ink, not becoming visible until heat was applied. He contemplated said concept and (believe it or not) theorized that if he covered his face with lemon juice, it would be invisible to bank security cameras. No, really, yes, he did!  So, he painted up his face with lemon juice and robbed two banks. Needless to say, he was, in both robberies, photographed very clearly and quickly apprehended. For obvious reasons, the court ordered a psychological evaluation before proceeding to trial. The psychiatrist called in pronounced that Mr. Wheeler was “competent to stand trial but shockingly ignorant.”

       Hearing of this, two other psychologists, Dunning and Kruger by name, (probably after they laughed their asses off) wondered why someone with such a basic lack of knowledge would think that they had a brilliant idea that had never been thought of before.

        To develop some hard data (as much as can be done in psychology, a “soft” science) they designed a study in 1999, using freshman college students, in which they measured their knowledge of a subject.     They then asked respondents to self-assess their own abilities in that subject. What they found was that the less someone knew about a subject, the higher they self-rated their knowledge in that subject! Read that again because it should, by now, sound familiar. They also found that people with little knowledge in a subject area undervalued the knowledge of people who were genuinely knowledgeable in the same subject. They concluded that when someone has a very shallow understanding of something, they are markedly unable to evaluate what they don’t know about it and, similarly, can’t appreciate how much a true expert does know about the subject.

I think it very likely that, in a few years, if you look up “Dunning-Kruger effect” on Wikipedia, you will find the article accompanied by a photo of Donald Trump.

       I’ve written at length about Trump’s lack of understanding about economics. His tariff disaster tells that story. His claim that “Mexico would pay for a wall” is similarly reflective of ignorance in several areas.  That has never however stopped him from grandiose statements reflecting both narcissistic hubris and his raging case of Dunning-Kruger syndrome. Examples (with comments where I feel like it) include:

"I know tech better than anyone."

 Really? Better than Bill Gates? (who he disdains)

"Nobody knows more about taxes than I do."

Except possibly every CPA in America.

"Nobody understands the horror of nuclear more than me."  

There are two former cities in Japan where everybody does, you arrogant asshole!

"Nobody knows more about trade than me."

 Tell the US soybean farmers who are reduced to taking government handouts.

"I know more than the generals on ISIS”

As General Jim Mattis said, “I won my spurs on the battlefield, he won his in a letter from a doctor.”

“Nobody knows jobs like I do!"

I got nuthin’ here.

“You’re going to have a deportation force. And you’re going to do it humanely,"        and: “President Obama has mass deported vast numbers of people — the most ever, and it’s never reported. I think people are going to find that I have not only the best policies, but I will have the biggest heart of anybody.”

Big body parts maybe, heart, nah.

“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

Three years later:

Climate change is real, but it's "naturally occurring." (current position)

On March 31, 2016, Trump told the Washington Post that the country needed to eliminate the national debt and that he could do it “fairly quickly” without raising taxes.

This may well be the best example of hubris in existence! Later, however the scenario was abandoned and replaced with:

“I think it could be a good time to borrow and pay off debt, borrow debt, make longer-term debt,”

That’s right; replace debt with debt. Sheer genius!

When warned in 2019 that the radically increasing deficit could crash the economy in mid 2020s his response was: “We won’t be here.”

“We’ll have an economy based on wind. I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much. I’ve studied it better than anybody. I know it’s very expensive.

“I know windmills very much?”  But what about the noise related cancers? “I never understood wind.” Is that even a real thought or idea? Everything that exists he either knows better than anyone or has studied it more. And yet he spends hours every day watching Fox News.

       There are examples, too numerous, of ways Trump asserts his superior knowledge while true accomplished professionals stand by grimacing. Medicine as relates to the current pandemic has been but the latest topic where Trump makes grandiose pronouncements, denies having said them when they are proven to be ludicrous or simply stupid and blames real news media for reporting these gaffes.

        Finally: Attorney Frank DiPrima, was a close friend of Professor William T. Kelley for 47 years.  “He must have told me 100 times over the course of 30 years,” says DiPrima, who has served as in-house counsel for several entities including the Federal Trade Commission. “I remember the inflection of his voice when he said it: ‘Donald Trump was the dumbest goddamn student I ever had!’” He would say that [Trump] came to Wharton thinking he already knew everything, that he was arrogant, and he wasn’t there to learn.” Kelley, who died in 2011 at age 94, taught marketing at Wharton for 31 years, retiring in 1982.

        Unsurprisingly, disgraced former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who served as Trump’s personal attorney and fixer from 2006 to 2018, said the following about his former boss: “When I say con man, I’m talking about a man who declares himself brilliant but directed me to threaten his high school, his colleges, and the College Board to never release his grades or SAT scores.”

Icarus, we hardly knew you, but then………