Confidence and Overconfidence

Why things are named as they are is a fascination of mine. The larger of the Minneapolis-St. Paul airports was originally “Lindberg" and the smaller one “Humphrey" before being renamed as Terminal 1 and Terminal 2. The NYC area has LaGuardia and JFK and everyone knows those names. But the Washington D.C. airport…Dulles? I had no idea how that got named.   

“Often wrong, never in doubt” (attributed to Winston Churchill) is an apt description of the current administration. Rather than considering possibilities, like shipping lanes, they just bomb more. Rather than taking time to identify and arrest criminals, they assassinate people in the streets and insist the two they murdered are “domestic terrorists.” Even the orange cult leader said in a CNN interview, said that he doesn’t ask God for forgiveness. 

And that finally brings me around to John Foster Dulles. The D.C. airport is named after him and he has quite a list of accomplishments. He was the Secretary of State during President Eisenhower’s administration, was instrumental in the early stages of the United Nations, and instigated the 1953 Iranian coup. That one may have had some long term consequences. But what I find most interesting is this anecdote as I can imagine it being said by the orange cult leader. 

Dulles was asked if he had ever been wrong about anything and after thinking a bit said something like, “ years ago, I thought I had made the wrong decision, but, of course, I was right all along. But I was wrong to think I was wrong.” Confidence is good, overconfidence can lead to disastrous consequences which is what we’re seeing now.