The phrase “hoist with their own petard” and its variations means, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, means “to suffer harm from a plan by which you had intended to harm someone else”
The phrase is one of the many expressions bestowed to the English language by William Shakespeare. On a trip to England, Hamlet discovers a plot to murder him and switches some letters so that the conspirators, his Wittenberg class mates Rosencranz and Guildenstern, are murdered instead. Savoring his trick, he says,
’tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard. (Hamlet, Act 3, scene 4, lines 229- 230)
I used to assume that the metaphor had something to do with ropes, the picture being of someone hoisted into the air, as in hoisting a flag. I had no idea what a “petard” was, maybe an item of clothing that the rope hooked into.
But that was before I became a 17th-century scholar! I now know that a “petard” is a small bomb, containing about five pounds of gun powder, not dropped by an airplane of course but set by an “engineer” who sets it in front of a door or fortification, then lights the fuse to blow it up.
Shakespeare is describing an engineer who is blown up (lifted up into the air, “hoist”) by his own bomb, something that happened quite frequently in the early days of gunpowder.
I keep seeing examples of people getting hoist by their own petard–that is, getting blown up by the bomb that they themselves have made.
For example, last week’s Monday Miscellany mentioned how the job market has collapsed for computer science majors. I have since come across an article in The Atlantic on the subject entitled The Computer-Science Bubble Is Bursting in which Rose Horowitch puts the blame squarely on AI. “Artificial intelligence has proved to be even more valuable as a writer of computer code than as a writer of words,” she writes. “This means it is ideally suited to replacing the very type of person who built it.” The engineer–and it is an engineer, though in a different sense from Shakespeare’s day–has developed a technology that is blowing up other people’s jobs, but it is now blowing up his own job.
I have noticed, though, that this metaphor has also become a tactic, so that the conservatives now in power are using laws and policies developed by liberals as a means of thwarting the liberals. For example. . .
–The Department of Justice has announced that it will be using laws designed to protect abortion clinics as a way to protect pro-life pregnancy clinics.
—Civil Rights laws against “race-exclusionary” practices are being used to dismantle DEI programs.
–Generous federal aid to education, long a major liberal cause, has given the federal government enormous power over American schools and colleges, which the new administration is using to undo liberal causes in education.
–Democratic presidents Obama and Biden used executive orders to bypass Congress all the time. But now Democrats are outraged because a Republican president is doing the same thing.
–The Biden administration used its justice department to punish political opponents, particularly, Donald Trump. Now the Trump administration is using its justice department to punish political opponents, particularly the justice department officials who went after Trump.
Trump is using the powers given to the federal government and the executive branch by the left to undo the left. He is hoisting the left with its own petards.
But petards can blow up engineers of any persuasion. Conservatives must beware lest they get hoisted once the progressives get back to power.
It may be satisfying for conservatives to take away Harvard’s ability to bring in foreign students as payback to the academic left. But that same tactic can be used as a precedent against Christian and conservative colleges, taking away their ability to approve foreign students, which would be a devastating financial hit to many unwoke small institutions.
One petard that both sides are tossing back and forth is the Senate’s filibuster, the option of unlimited debate on a bill that can only be overcome by a 60% vote to shut down discussion and to bring the measure to a vote. In practice, this means that all bills must win 60% of the vote, otherwise they will pass into oblivion.
In the last Senate, with its close Democratic majority, progressive Democrats wanted to eliminate the filibuster, since it served as a major obstacle to implementing President Biden’s agenda. Now, in a Senate with a close Republican majority, Democrats rely on the filibuster as a major obstacle to implementing President Trump’s agenda. So now, Republicans are trying to find ways to get around the filibuster!
Rules designed to favor one side can easily be used to favor the other side. To use other hoary expressions, though not by Shakespeare, “turn about is fair play,” a sword “can cut both ways,” and “what goes around comes around.” What we need are objective, fair principles that apply equally to everyone.
Can you think of other examples of being hoist by one’s own petard? If so, give them in the comments.
Illustration: Businessman facing debt issues by MAD TECK via IconScout, free license [shows one kind of a petard]
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