Who's your favorite "Noble Failure" in history?

[DerekG]

Life can really suck. And few things underscores this sad reality more than reading about a noble failure--that is to say, a man or woman who sincerely and courageously tried to change an unfortunate course of events for the better, and failed. Whether said failure was due to lack of contingencies, or overwhelming opposition, or just plain rotten luck, s/he wound up on the losing end.

My pick: Johann Georg Elser. A devout Christian leftist who came the closest to assassinating Hitler (in '39, no less...before the real horror show started). His plan, years in the making, was a work of art. Sadly, for both himself and the world, he didn't account for foggy weather conditions. Google him sometime. It will make you weep tears of blood.

[shenmue]

1. Oh, man

That's a good question. I have to think for a bit.

[pinboy3niner]

2. For a fictional character, Don Quixote...

ALDONZA: Why do you do these things?

DON QUIXOTE
What things?

ALDONZA
These ridiculous... the things you do!

DON QUIXOTE
I hope to add some measure of grace to the world.

ALDONZA
The world's a dung heap and we are maggots that crawl on it!

DON QUIXOTE
My Lady knows better in her heart.

ALDONZA
What's in my heart will get me halfway to hell.
And you, Señor Don Quixote-you're going to take
such a beating!

DON QUIXOTE
Whether I win or lose does not matter.

ALDONZA
What does?

DON QUIXOTE
Only that I follow the quest.

ALDONZA
(spits)
That for your Quest!
(turns, marches away; stops, turns bock
and asks, awkwardly)
What does that mean... quest?

DON QUIXOTE
It is the mission of each true knight...
His duty... nay, his privilege!
To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go;
To right the unrightable wrong.

To love, pure and chaste, from afar,
To try, when your arms are too weary,
To reach the unreachable star!

This is my Quest to follow that star,
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far,
To fight for the right
Without question or pause,
To be willing to march into hell
For a heavenly cause!

And I know, if I'll only be true
To this glorious Quest,
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest.

And the world will be better for this,
That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage,
To reach the unreachable stars!


--From Man of La Mancha

[KingCharlemagne]

7. Quixote doesn't hold a candle to Yossarian, imo. Speaking of quests, it's a long, lonely

Last edited Sat Jan 17, 2015, 05:21 PM - Edit history (1)

swim from Sicily to Sweden.

[Nay]

3. Ignaz Semmelweis. He was a doctor who discovered that washing your

hands before tending pregnant women reduced the incidence of childbed fever to almost nothing. This was before the germ theory of illness was known to be true. His insistence on handwashing was followed in his two clinics to great result, but he was thought to be nuts about the subject. He wrote famous obstetricians and called them stupid for not following his handwashing method. He was sent to an asylum, where he was beaten by guards and died of septicemia 14 days later.

[KingCharlemagne]

4. John Brown. - nt

[DerekG]

9. But did Brown really fancy himself a failure?

Based on his rejection of escape plan overtures, it's likely he knew that his trial and martyred execution would serve the abolitionist cause far better than any armory raid would.

I don't quite get the sense of overwhelming despair in Brown's final days that I do with other Noble Failures. Methinks that that devout Christian knew a Resurrection was at hand.

[KingCharlemagne]

11. So many what-ifs wrt Brown's raid on the Federal Army at Harper's Ferry. Given his

stated tactical objective - the arming and fomenting of a slave insurrection in Virgina -- I would have to say his raid was a tactical objective, even if his larger strategic objectives may have been realized.

Good points you raise, though. I only wish Brown had held the east-bound train there for 24 hours, rather than letting it proceed to spread the alarm. History often turns on such what-ifs.

[First Speaker]

5. Reconstruction

...maybe not an individual failure--rather, a national one. But that was the largest failure in US history, taken all in all. And despite all the corruption and human weakness involved in it--as in all human endeavors--it was a noble failure. If we need to name names, then I'd say Grant, the most underestimated President in US history.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. The League of Nations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Nations

The League of Nations (abbreviated as LN in English, "Société des Nations" abbreviated as SDN in French) was an intergovernmental organisation founded on 10 January 1920 as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first international organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace.[1] Its primary goals, as stated in its Covenant, included preventing wars through collective security and disarmament and settling international disputes through negotiation and arbitration.[2] Other issues in this and related treaties included labour conditions, just treatment of native inhabitants, human and drug trafficking, arms trade, global health, prisoners of war, and protection of minorities in Europe.[3] At its greatest extent from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, it had 58 members.

The diplomatic philosophy behind the League represented a fundamental shift from the preceding hundred years. The League lacked its own armed force and depended on the Great Powers to enforce its resolutions, keep to its economic sanctions, or provide an army when needed. However, the Great Powers were often reluctant to do so. Sanctions could hurt League members, so they were reluctant to comply with them. When, during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, the League accused Italian soldiers of targeting Red Cross medical tents, Benito Mussolini responded that "the League is very well when sparrows shout, but no good at all when eagles fall out."[4]

After a number of notable successes and some early failures in the 1920s, the League ultimately proved incapable of preventing aggression by the Axis powers in the 1930s. Germany withdrew from the League, as did Japan, Italy, Spain, and others. The onset of the Second World War showed that the League had failed its primary purpose, which was to prevent any future world war. The League lasted for 26 years; the United Nations (UN) replaced it after the end of the Second World War on 20 April 1946 and inherited a number of agencies and organisations founded by the League.

[H2O Man]

12. Good answer!

[linuxman]

8. This man.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vercingetorix

[Donald Ian Rankin]

10. I'm wary of "Kill Hitler" counterfactuals, especially that late.

Hitler's reputation as a military strategist is low - in particular, if he hadn't invaded Russia, as a British Jew I might not be typing this today.

One possibility is that if Elser had succeeded than WWII would not have happened, but another is that another Nazi would have taken over in Hitler's place, and might have won.

We'll never know.

[lame54]

13. and some here are trying to connect Hitler to atheism...

Sounds like god was on his side

[DerekG]

14. Hitler was simply an unfathomably lucky man

Until he wasn't.

[BainsBane]

15. Not really sure he was a failure

but his democratic, socialist experiment failed due to CIA intervention, and he was assassinated by the Chilean military in the process of the coup. Salvador Allende of Chile, president from 1970-73.