Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Pensar en el largo plazo y actuar en el corto, dice Wallerstein

Commentary No. 363, Oct. 15, 2013

"The Samson Complex"

 

In the Bible there is a famous story of Samson, who is a hero. There are many interpretations of the meaning of the tale in which Samson, an Israelite, and someone of God-granted strength, pulls down the temple of the (also very strong) enemy Philistines, dying himself in the process. I take it to mean that an act which seems irrational (Samson dies in the process) is both heroic and quite sensible in that it becomes the way (possibly the only way) in which the strong enemy is defeated and his "people" saved