Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Fame and Wisdom


[Photo by chuttersnap at Unsplash]

Has this ever happened to you?

You hear that some leader or thinker is profound and then, when you listen to their speeches or read their essays on a substantive issue ("Why did the chicken cross the road?"), you are unable to find anything deeper than the most obvious of conclusions ("To get to the other side."). 

[It is very thin stuff and they often keep a straw man argument nearby.]

Just as some people are "famous for being famous" there may be far more who are famous for being wise. 

Unfortunately, they often turn out to be not quite as wise as their boosters imply.

This is hardly a new observation.

Hans Christian Andersen's famous story cleverly described the problem

And "Being There" had a lot of fun with the subject.

2 comments:

Kurt Harden said...

There are entire industries built around this - I think of many of the "top" health care consultants.

Michael Wade said...

Kurt,

It is a very successful model.

Michael