The Greeks have a word for it, except that they don’t, if they ever did. I’m referring to hubris, which modern usage defines as the kind of overweening pride that so frequently presages a serious fall. Because the ancients used the word rather differently, mostly to describe acts of gratuitous cruelty towards one’s inferiors: that humiliation and belittling of others which aims to make one appear grander. A more subtle form of hubris involved the belittling or humiliation of one’s superiors, such as refusing an honour or distinction at their hands, as a way of demonstrating one’s independence from their tutelage or patronage. That either type of behaviour could lead to the harshest judgement of one’s peers is obvious enough, I think. Equally obvious is our predictable lack of sympathy towards all such people when they fail dramatically to achieve their vaunted ambitions. We shake our heads sagely before returning to work on our own, far less dramatic failures.

So what is it, I ask, which makes a certain kind of failure so attractive, even when the one who fails is himself strikingly unsympathetic? Steve Jobs was a failure more often in his life than he was a success. He was also quite a nasty piece of work by any normal standards of social etiquette and affection. Yet he is remembered for his ultimate success and for his rigorous dedication to each and every product idea that carried his brand forward. But even if the comeback kid had failed to come back, he would still be veiled today in the byronesque aura of the great romantic loser, as well as a giant cloud of “what if”, that colourful gas of which historical pipe dreams are made.

Meanwhile Howard Hughes, also a decidedly unpleasant person, and despite his many valuable contributions to the advancement of aeronautics and numerous business successes, is nonetheless generally remembered as a failure of titanic proportions, whose legend beds down easily with the classic nosedives of the Edsel, Woolworths, CBGBs, Pan Am, DeLorean and the Sony Betamax standard. Why? Is it because of the Spruce Goose that barely flew? Was it the failure of RKO films, the loss of TWA, or is it mainly because his life as a normal human being was such a tragic void?

It seems that we love a loser only if we can attach them to our own narrative. Something about little orphan Steven, working out of a garage, meeting with three wise men, making disciples, founding a faith ... touches a nerve in our humanity. Even if Apple had missed becoming that which it is today and had been sunk by two shots to larboard from Microsoft, we would still want to believe. Enron will never do that to us, and Hughes, despite being bigged-up by DiCaprio, who really went for the “misunderstood tycoon and Don Juan of the joystick” aspect of the character, is never going to do it either. Perhaps Hughes typified the “Fail Better” mentality of that other great misanthrope, Samuel Beckett. Thus his lack of fellow feeling for the rest of us took him out of our narrative and left him alone in his own. Despite a legacy of 2.5 billion we think of him as a sad, sad case, not the kind of loser the world likes to celebrate.

How very different from Vincent Van Gogh! On the 16th January 1890, the day before the opening of the annual salon of the Circle of Twenty in Paris, the artist Henry de Groux decided not to exhibit any of his own works, because he did not wish to see one of them hanging next to “that execrable pot of sunflowers from Mr Vincent”. Indeed, Van Gogh exhibited two canvases from his Sunflower series as well as “The Ivy”, “Flowering Orchard (Arles)”, “Wheat field”, “Sunrise (Saint-Rémy)” and “The Red Vine” at the salon. This last painting was bought by Anna Boch. It was the only painting Van Gogh would ever sell in his lifetime. Vincent van Gogh died on the 29th July 1890 and the Circle of Twenty organized a retrospective of his work. If we want the perfect example of spectacular failure on a truly human scale, devoid of all hubris, then the failure of Van Gogh is it.

However, much like describing the death of Elvis, Jimi or Whitney as a “good career move”, Vincent’s artistic failure in his own lifetime and even his miserable failure at dying (he badly botched his own suicide, if it was a suicide, some think it was an accidental shooting by a couple of lads out rabbiting) served greatly in the creation of the beautiful loser legend that surrounds him. Any failed artist since those days has been able to look to Vincent as a guiding star in the hope that posterity will be kind. Fortunately, perhaps, it seldom is.

For failure has its own merits: it sharpens your game. It realigns your priorities by clarifying the things you are no good at, even if they are legion. The business community generally refers to two types of failure: the “noble failure” that is well thought through, well enacted and yet for some reason goes pear-shaped (you learn, you chalk it up to experience, you hone your strategy) and the “stupid failure” that might have been a good idea, but was badly thought through and badly enacted, from which you can learn very little.

Speaking at the 2008 Harvard Graduation Ceremony, the writer J. K. Rowling, who lived years of her life at rock-bottom, praised the merits of failure: the way it focuses your outlook, enhances the quality of that which you can genuinely do well, tells you clearly what you are no good at. She also said this:

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default. Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it.”

Most of these criteria are clear enough: financial loss, loss of job, loss of self-respect and the respect of others, loss of direction, loss of your social net, loss of an affective life, etc. Anyone who can still retain a disciplined attitude towards writing, painting, dancing, playing the violin, engineering, inventing, solving cunning mathematical puzzles, mapping the cosmos, generating software code and the like ... may eventually succeed in salvaging the most humane components of their humanity from the general wreckage of their lives, even at a very great price.

Of the 51 automobiles that Preston Tucker built before his company collapsed, 47 are still in existence. That makes them, at least in proportional terms, the safest and most successful cars of all time. The rear-engine, sub-frame layout, the logical instrumental grouping, the seat belts, the “steering” third headlight, the independent suspension and disc brakes ... all were features ahead of its contemporaries. Like Van Gogh, the Tucker would only be truly appreciated by later generations. Sadly, by the time that first generation was born, Preston Tucker had already died of “a broken heart” (complicated by lung cancer) at the age of 53.

Another future generation may say the same of the recent spectacular failure of the dream car of the last decade, the Aptera. Far ahead of anything in terms of its aerodynamics, weight, fuel efficiency and safety, this flying bird of a vehicle will never grace our streets with its fluid presence and silent passage. A bad business model made the Aptera the Tucker of its era. But our grandchildren will love this elegant failure. In 2024 they will say: “this is what the future looked like in 2004! How could it have failed?” By being too far ahead of its time, that’s how; by not bending the knee before the great and the good, that’s how; by not deferring to the nobility of Detroit for patronage, that’s how ...

Hubris, in the ancient sense, killed the Aptera. It failed at success. It may yet make a success of failure. There are a couple of dozen Apteras in existence. And a Tucker recently changed hands for just under 3 million dollars.


© Edwin Drood, March 2012