By Barbara W. Tuchman
Wicked Popes, abusive power, and wooden heads. One finds them all in The March of Folly, the fascinating historical critique by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Barbara W. Tuchman (1912-1989).
Tuchman devotes page after page to highlight the governmental devotion to folly that permeates history:
A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests. Mankind, it seems, makes a poorer performance of government than of almost any other human activity. In this sphere, wisdom, which may be defined as the exercise of judgment acting on experience, common sense and available information, is less operative and more frustrated than it should be (4).
Tuchman will demonstrate how nations repeatedly pursue policies contrary to their best interest. Foolishly, willingly, and bewilderingly they take in the proverbial Trojan horse.
And it is the Trojan Horse that Tuchman offers as the prototype of misguided government action. Why would anyone welcome within their walls that which could be a trap without first assessing the danger, considering the consequences, and exploring alternatives.
This is foolishness of the highest magnitude. This is pursuing a policy contrary to self-interest. And this pursuit of folly is the sad tale of history.
The author is not alone in her assessment of governmental incompetence. She quotes John Adams, our second President, who said,
Government is at a stand; little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago (5).
She also quotes a historian’s blistering critique of Philip II of Spain,
No experience of the failure of his policy could shake his belief in its essential excellence (7).
Tuchman tells us that misgovernment is of four kinds:
1. Tyranny or oppression (of which there are so many examples she need not cite one).
2. Excessive ambition (think Germany in WWI and WWII)
3. Incompetence or decadence (think the Roman Empire)
4. Folly or perversity (pursuing policies contrary to self-interest)
The March of Folly is concerned with the last. After identifying folly as the pursuit of policy contrary to self-interest and providing the Trojans taking in the wooden horse as a prototype of this folly, she traces this pursuit of folly in three historical moments:
1. The Renaissance Popes Provoke the Protestant Secession (1470-1530)
“The folly of the popes was not pursuit of counter-productive policy so much as rejection of any steady or coherent policy either political or religious that would have improved their situation or arrested the rising discontent. 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 (125).
Three attitudes mark the papacy at this time: (1) Obliviousness to the growing disaffection of constituents, (2) Primacy of self-aggrandizement, (3) Illusion of invulnerable status. Each are persistent aspects of folly. While bred in the Renaissance popes and exaggerated by the surrounding culture, each of the three are independent of time and recurrent in governorship (126).
2. The British Lose America:
Tuchman comments that "although possession [of the colonies] was of greater value than principle, nevertheless the greater was thrown away for the less, the unworkable pursued at the sacrifice of the possible. This phenomenon is one of the commonest of government follies" (128).
She cites Benjamin Franklin who, in condemning the Stamp Act of Great Britain, said, “they cannot compel a man to take stamps who chooses to do without them. They will not find a rebellion; they may indeed make one.” Tuchman said, "That could stand as Britain’s epitaph for the decade" (164).
3. America Betrays Herself in Vietnam:
One insight and incident can stand as the primary exhibit of American folly in Vietnam. In December, 1946, French General Leclerc, was the commander in Vietnam. After surveying the situation, he said, “It would take 500,000 men to do it (tame North Vietnam) and even then it could not be done.” Tuchman writes, “In one sentence he laid out the future, and his estimate would still be valid when 500,000 American soldiers were actually in the field two decades later (244, 347).
What generates such foolishness on the part of government? The answer in one word, "character."
Character again was fate.
Those four words summarize the message the author wishes to convey, for folly marches most forcefully where when character is absent (370). The absence of character breeds terrible consequences. Tuchman concludes the book reflecting on folly's mark on America:
“What America lost in Vietnam was, to put it in one word, virtue” (374).
Brilliant summations:
The author showcases a biting wit and keen ability to provide cogent and sometimes devastating summaries:
On wooden-headedness:Tuchman comes back to this appellation time and again. "Wooden-headedness consists in assessing a situation in terms of preconceive fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts. It is epitomized in a historian's statement about Philip II of Spain, the surpassing wooden-head of all sovereigns: “No experience of the failure of his policy could shake his belief in its essential excellence” (7).
On Clement VII, 1523-34: Supreme office, like sudden disaster, often reveals the man, and revealed Clement as less adequate than expected (120).
On Great Britain’s intractability: “Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government, and when combined with a position of power even more so” (138).
On Great Britain’s ignoring of the political warning signs that spelled trouble from America: “But the fate of warning in political affairs it to be futile when the recipient wished to believe otherwise” (199).
On Johnson’s need for power: “Johnson felt he had to be 'strong,' . . . He did not feel a comparable impulse to be wise; to examine options before he spoke" (311).
About the domino theory of the day: If Vietnam fell to communism, then other nations in Southeast Asia would topple to it like dominoes. She comments: “Minds at the top were locked in the vise of 1954—that Ho was an agent of world Communism . . ."
On Johnson and truth that ideas have (sometimes devastating) consequences: Like Kennedy, Johnson believed that to lose South Vietnam would be to lose the White House. It would “shatter my Presidency, kill my Administration, and damage our democracy.” It would begin WWIII. He was as sure of this “as nearly anyone can be certain of anything.” No one is so sure of his premises as the man who knows too little” (319).
On Johnson’s refusal to listen to his advisors: “But minds at the top were locked in the vice of 1954 . . .”
On Kennedy’s inability to understand the times: “Here was a classic case of seeing the truth and acting without reference to it” (287).
On Kennedy: Kennedy was an operator of quick intelligence and strong ambition who stated many elevated principles convincingly, eloquently, even passionately, while his actions did not always match” (284).
Quotes & Notes To Ponder:
Burke, Edmund: The utility of “perseverance in absurdity is more than I could ever discern" (290).
Burke" Show the thing you contend for to be reason, show it to be common sense, show it to be the means of attaining some useful end, and then I am content to allow it what dignity you please” (363).
Character: "Flee, we are in the hands of a wolf.” Giovanni de’ Medici when hearing of Rodrigo Borgia’s elevation to the Papacy (75).
Cold war orthodoxy: Vietnam was the “cornerstone of the free world in Southeast Asia, the keystone of the arch, the finger in the dike" (283).
Common sense: “A faculty that has a hard time surviving in high office” (358).
Decay of government: "The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded” (Montesquieu, 18th Century, 340).
Earl of Sandwich: The Earl of Sandwich, a two-time Lord of the Admiralty, was “hearty, good-humored and corrupt” using his positions in the Navy to pad his own pockets. “So addicted to gambling that, sparing no time for meals, he would slap a slice of meat between two slices of bread to eat while gambling, thus bequeathing his name to the indispensable edible artifact of the Western world” (144).
Folly: “Know my son, how little wisdom the world is governed.” The dying conclusion of Count Axel Oxenstierna, Chancellor of Sweden
Folly: “Folly, in one of its aspects, is the obstinate attachment to a disserviceable goal” (96). A prime example is Pope Julius, who pursued his aims with “absolute disregard of obstacles” but in total disregard for the church (see pages 96-97).
Folly: “Emotionalism is always a contributory source of folly.” Great Britain treated the colonies like recalcitrant children, not the maturing nation it was becoming (see page 187).
Folly: “Insistence on a rooted notion regardless of contrary evidence is the source of the self-deception that characterizes folly” (209, see also 224).
Folly: Seeing the truth and acting without reference to it (287). Tuchman's comment about Kennedy who saw the French treat Indochina as "a white man's war" but did not see his own engagement in that way. Kennedy said if the war in Indochina were ever “converted into a white man’s war” we would lose it as the French lost it (287).
Founding Fathers: “The most remarkable generation of public men in the history of the United States or perhaps of any other nation” (Arthur M. Schlesinger, 18).
Powerful summary: "We are now married to failure." Galbraith on Vietnam, 1961-2
Government: “While all other sciences have advanced, government is at a stand; little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago” (John Adams, 5)
Government: “Mankind, it seems, makes a poorer performance of government that of almost any other human activity” (Barbara Tuchman, 4). She also said, “Wisdom in government is still an arrow that remains, however rarely used, in the human quiver” (33).
John Adams on British national pride: “The pride and vanity of that nation is a disease; it is a delirium; it has been flattered and inflamed so long by themselves and others that it perverts everything” (229).
LBJ and Nixon: Both presidents won by huge majorities, ironically, only to topple shortly afterwards (371).
Power: “You may exert power over, but you can never govern an unwilling people.” Governor Thomas Pownall to British leaders, speaking from seven years of experience of living in the American colonies (183).
Power: Lust for power is “the most flagrant of all the passions.” (Tacitus, 381).
Vietnam: Vietnam was the first domino in the widely held theory that if American support fell, Vietnam would disintegrate, and “the front against Communism would give way in Indochina just when it faced a new threat elsewhere” (275).
Vietnam (a starting date for America's official presence): When the US established MACV (Military Assistance Command Vietnam), 1962. (298).
Wooden-headedness: "No one is so sure of his premises as the man who knows too little." (and I would add, "think he knows enough"). The worst acts of wooden-headedness coming from the Renaissance Popes of the 15th and 16th centuries (54).
Where does The March of Folly land on The Bacon Scale?
Sir Francis Bacon said, "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested" (The Essays). The March of Folly is a book to be chewed and digested. Savor the meal.
It should be noted that Tuchman approaches her subject from a perspective void of God. “In the search for meaning we must not forget that the gods (or God), for that matter are a concept of the human mind; they are the creatures of man, not vice versa. They are needed and invented to give meaning and purpose to the puzzle that is life of earth . . . .” (45-46). The author’s approach differs markedly from a biblical perspective, “the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men” (Daniel 4:17, ESV).
That important point aside, her analysis is insightful and timely for her day and ours.