Oct 132010
The idea of winning smacks of the absolute and archaic. The pulse of history, liberal guilt and the end-of-history, millenarian dream of global homogeneity are against it. We all go to the worms. Civilizations rise and fall. What remains of countless ‘wins’ are a few stone remnants and a museum display of corroded armour.
Language, as always, is dire with prognostication. One can win the battle but not the war. And even if one wins, it might be a Pyrrhic victory. In the modern parlance, quagmire is a metaphor turned into a technical term for a victory that won’t stick
Read the rest at On Winning and Responsibility : Global Brief.
I see that they illustrated it with your baby picture…
🙂 Did you read to the end?
I know it’s Eros, D.
But it could be me. I did have wings once.
This is a wise, thoughtful piece, Doug. I’m going to bring it in to one of my freshman classes, whose theme is Sport & Society – mostly student-athletes who buy right into the mentality you break down in para 5-6.
Thanks, John.
Yes, thanks Doug.
My favorite debasement of the term comes when, after presidential election debates, commentators get together to tell us who “won.”