Citation

Fisher L. Nature 2015; 527(7576): 9.

Affiliation

University of Bristol, UK.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1038/527009a

PMID

26536922

Abstract

What can a 70-year-old book on how to play bridge tell us about addressing the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe? And what does it have to do with King Lear?

In Shakespeare's play, the Duke of Albany warns that “striving to better, oft we mar what's well”. In the search for a solution, in other words, we can let the perfect become the enemy of the good. In his 1945 book Why You Lose at Bridge, S. J. Simon called it the half-loaf strategy: the most successful players aim for the best possible result, rather than the best result possible.

In human and political crises, the best possible result is often one of damage limitation — an outcome that avoids or delays the chance of a large-scale and catastrophic change. So, the question then becomes: how can we achieve such an outcome?

Language: en