" Paradoxical confidence is the confidence we place in someone on the basis of their failure or their absence of qualities. The prototype of of this confidence is the failure of prophecy [...] following which the group, instead of denying its leader and dispersing, closes ranks around him and creates religious, sectarian, and ecclesiastical institutions to preserve the faith. Institutions all the more solid for deriving their energy from the failure of the prophecy. "
― Jean Baudrillard , America