Importance of studying folly

 What’s common to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour and the vervet monkey? They are all case studies in folly, according to Tata Sons director R. Gopalakrishnan.

Gopalakrishnan, invited by the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry, along with the KKN Group, The Telegraph and Seagrams, was speaking on “A Brief History of Folly, Why Smart People Continue to Make Stupid Mistakes” to a gathering at the Tollygunge Club.

The lecture, part of the chamber’s Think series, was peppered with stories and anecdotes. Gopalakrishnan, set out to talk about human follies “not because of Dominique Strauss-Kahn but because individuals, generally and as part of a system, institution, government or society, display aberrant behaviour”.

Gopalakrishnan set about to explore why the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbour, which ultimately caused nuclear catastrophe.

“By 1900, Japan had become self-confident. It had won the war with Russia, it was a rising power in the East and so it thought it must stop Western imperialism from dominating South-East Asia,” said Gopalakrishnan.

Faced with a US trade embargo, Japan opted for aggression because it thought such an approach would cause the US to back away.

General Yamamoto later said that the plan to bomb Pearl Harbour was a “mistake”, said Gopalakrishnan.

The spotlight was on human beings, but Gopalakrishnan brought in instances from the animal kingdom. He spoke of the vervet monkey.

“Vervet monkeys are exceptionally intelligent. But they suddenly behave stupidly. I think we all evolved from the vervet monkey. If we analyse why the monkey behaves in that fashion, it may provide us with a better understanding of ourselves.”