花についての番外編

たまたまTwitter上で以下の引用が目に留まりました。ゲーツ氏は国防長官を務めた元CIA分析官です。

リアリズムと防衛のBOT @ria_bou_bot

「情勢分析を行なう者は、悲観論者であるべきだ。例えば花の匂いをかいだならば、近くに棺おけがあるのではないかと疑うようでなければならない」　ロバート・マイケル・ゲーツ

ゲーツ氏はこの引用がお気に入りのようでいろいろなところで語っているようですが、音声やスクリプト入りで見つけられたのはこちら。

Robert Gates

Address to the World Forum on the Future of Democracy

delivered 17 September 2007, The College of William & Mary, VA

１分35秒あたりから

This setting is fitting for my topic today: a “realist’s” view of promoting democracy abroad.

I had quite a reputation as a pessimist when I was in the intelligence business. A journalist once described me as the Eeyore of national security -- able to find the darkest cloud in any silver lining. I used to joke that when an intelligence officer smelled the flowers, he’d look around for the coffin. Today, as one looks around the world -- wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an ambitious and fanatical theocracy in Iran, a nuclear North Korea, terrorism, and more -- there would seem to be ample grounds to be gloomy.

Eeyoreについては過去にブログでも取り上げました。

（オックスフォード ）

Eeyore

the donkey in the Winnie-the-Pooh books by A A Milne. He is always complaining about things in a very sad way. His name comes from the sound a donkey makes.

最近も悲観論に絡めたコラムでEeyoreが登場していました。

In Praise of Pessimism

This country is going to need its Eeyores.

By Jennifer Senior Opinion columnist April 26, 2020

Confession: I have a secret talent for making lemons out of lemonade. It may not be readily apparent. I smile a lot and make cheerful conversation; my end of the dinner table is not some horrible event horizon beyond which all sunlight disappears. But tucked inside me, almost always, is a grumbling Eeyore.

That Eeyore is having her moment. The coronavirus is springtime for pessimists. Every gloomy thought I’ve had about this pandemic has more or less come to pass. So when I read of a possibly more devastating wave of Covid-19 this coming winter, or that recovered patients in South Korea are suddenly becoming reinfected, or that a vaccine might take north of 18 months to develop and mass produce, I merely think Welcome to my brain. Those are the lyrics of my personal death-metal soundtrack. They’ve been playing in my head all along.

このコラムでは根拠のない楽観論よりも最悪のケースを想定して行動するdefensive pessimismを取り上げていました。