Like many, the first time I heard the phrase ‘A Perfect Storm’ was around the year 2000 when George Cloony starred in a film adaptation of the 1997 book of the same name. Sebastian Junger (the author) described, well, a perfect storm – where all the individual metrological components combined to create the best possible example of a storm at sea (whereas individually they would have been much less powerful). This, of course, was a bad thing for Capt. Billy Tyne and his unfortunate shipmates on the Andrea Gail.
Since the release of the film, the phrase has been used as a metaphor to describe any situation whereby conditions were conducive to a given result; usually in the format “It was the perfect storm of ______ and ______ which led to _______”, and it seems that the merest coincidence is sufficient to trigger its use.
A search on NY times website comes up with 10,000+ hits, some of the top 10 quotes in the last few weeks include:
- “‘This is a perfect storm of opportunity‘ Bob Michaelis goateed with a shaved head, told the 300 or so people“
- “Richard Segal, Africa specialist and head of macroeconomic…national income and employment. ‘It’s really almost a perfect storm of bad news for foreign currency earnings for East Africa’“
- “Parents footing the bill for tuition this fall are facing down a perfect storm of ugliness“
- “David Ellwood, dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, add up to a ‘benevolent perfect storm’, which could lure talented people to public service in a way not seen in decades“
- “‘It’s sort of this perfect storm of economic pressures” said Jon Forrest Dohlin, the aquarium’s director“
- “‘It was a perfect storm’, Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo said“
- “An upset in the first round of the N.C.A.A tournament requires a perfect storm of good fortune“
- “Blogger Katie Allison Granju calls the situation the ‘perfect storm of unethical medical care‘“
So many perfect storms, good and bad, regarding economics, sport and medicine – echoing the hot topics of the day and showing how deep the phrase has penetrated society in such a short time. Ordinarily, the use of metaphors doesn’t irritate me, and I don’t intend to dwell on the merits of its use, this has been better documented by stylists, grammarians, academia, the press and even on financial websites. However, I share the opinion that the cliche is tired and irritating, but what concerns me more is that I have noticed something less than honest in its use, particularly by people who seek to avoid responsibility for deliberate action which led to an event; for example, when Sam Zell blamed the bankruptcy of the Tribune Co. on the “a ‘perfect storm’ of forces roiling the media industry” he was using the phrase as a defense to avert focus from the poor choices he had made in the past and the industry’s inability (or unwillingness) to adapt to changing times.
The most sinister use of this defense I’ve seen was in was in another recent (22-Apr-09) New York Times article which described the circumstances as to how the use of torture came to be approved by the US, it quotes a ‘Former CIA official’ describing the process as “a perfect storm of ignorance and enthusiasm”.
Capt Tyne could not have held back the seas and the wind, his storm was a natural phenomenon, whereas the ignorant can be educated and enthusiasm can be tempered. Rather, the intent of framing a complex situation in this manner is to encourage the reader to think “ah well, it was a perfect storm, we couldn’t have done anything about it”.
I only hope that the phrase dies out as quickly as it arose, or at least that authors use it to describe a confluence of events leading to something that is greater than the sum of its parts which gives rise to a bad and unavoidablesituation. Until that (admittedly unlikely) event occurs, I encourage readers not to accept its use on face value, but to look at whether it is being used to frame a situation as uncontrollable by someone who could have taken steps to avoid it.
I’ll end this post with a quote from Ryan Tate on Gawker, which pretty much summed it up for me “Your company/industry/economy did not fail because of a ‘perfect storm’, a chance, disastrous combination of outside events. It failed because you sucked!”
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