Leadership Quote by John McCarthy

McCarthy’s line lands like a rebuke to the comforting myth that bad decisions are mostly a knowledge problem. It’s an argument against the smug faith that more data, more schooling, more “awareness” will automatically rescue us from our own worst instincts. In political life especially, foolishness is often fully briefed, well-lawyered, and backed by binders of talking points. The tragedy is that people can be informed and still choose spectacle over substance, tribe over truth, momentum over judgment.

The intent is surgical: shift blame away from ignorance and toward incentives. If foolishness isn’t caused by a lack of intelligence, then the culprit is usually misaligned motives - careerism, fear, vanity, loyalty tests, the addictive sugar rush of public attention. That’s a harder diagnosis because it implicates systems, not just individuals. It also punctures the patronizing habit of explaining political catastrophe as a failure of “education,” as if the electorate or a rival faction simply needs tutoring.

The subtext is moral without being preachy: information doesn’t produce wisdom. Wisdom requires restraint, humility, and the willingness to pay a price for being right. In a culture that treats every issue as content and every conflict as identity, foolishness can be rational behavior in the short term - it can win elections, protect status, keep donors happy. McCarthy is pointing at that uncomfortable reality: sometimes people aren’t confused. They’re complicit.