Hedging 87
Caesarian section. He found this out after a very large hedge had
moved from Birnam to Dunsinane.)
Most oracles and insurance agents are notorious for their use
of hedging: some take it to unimagined lengths. The centuries of
Nostradamus are so obscure, and can be translated in so many
ways, that they can be used to predict literally anything. People
have claimed to find in them the most astonishingly detailed,
and astonishingly accurate, foretelling of the future. Not only
Napoleon and Hitler, but even recent popes and politicians
emerge from his pages. As with all hedged prophecies, however,
there are tell-tale signals. People are very good at finding refer-
ences in the writings of Nostradamus to what has already hap-
pened. They are not successful at finding accurate accounts of
what will happen. There is also a remarkable consistency to the
way in which subsequent ages have found that many of his
prophecies made sense for their own time.
Dishonesty is an essential aspect of hedging. The ambiguity is
inserted deliberately with intent to deceive, and for the purpose
of proving the perpetrator correct, whatever the outcome. The
fairground fortune-teller shelters harmlessly behind her hedge by
telling you that you are destined to travel (even if only on the No.
36 bus home). The economist hides rather more wilfully behind
the hedge that things will get worse, barring a major change in
the world economy; (when they get better, it is because there
was a major change in the world economy.)
Hedging requires planning. Few people can toss off
ambiguous phrases on the spur of the moment; we expect to
find them in the prepared statement which is issued, rather than
in the off-the-cuff remark. You should accumulate a stock of
phrases which look plain enough from one angle, but are
bedecked with hedges as you approach them.
You will find the cheque paid directly into your bank account.
(When?)