ating argument. In a warm tone, he reminds us that everyone, however important and learned they might be, is a fool. No one is spared, not even the author. However well-schooled he was, Erasmus remained— he insisted—as much of a nitwit as anyone else: his judgement is faulty, his passions get the better of him, he is prey to superstition and irrational fear, he is shy whenever he has to meet new people, he drops things at elegant dinners.


This is deeply cheering, for it means that our own repeated idiocies do not have to exclude us from the best company. Looking like a fool, making blunders or suggesting bizarre ideas about arranging the office furniture doesn’t render us unfit for the workplace; it just makes us a bit more like the greatest scholar of the northern European Renaissance. We need to learn to be humble, not simply about our own shortcomings, but about the shortcomings of everyone we work with.


We are all idiots now, we have been idiots in the past, and we will be idiots again in the future—and that is OK. Sadly, there aren’t any other available options for human beings. We should acknowledge the reality of this openly, and do so repeatedly, lest we forget. If we can find ways of doing that, we’ll be in far better shape to work together.


55


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