Fickleness
Fickleness or inconstancy is a person's indecision.
In contrast to courage , daring or courage, the fickle is not determined, but vacillates between two or more possibilities. The reason for fickle behavior can, for example, be a dilemma in which both options lead to undesirable results or have a negative side effect.
Used in a different way, fickleness can also be used as the opposite of reliability , in the sense that the fickle is assumed to be lacking in character. The indecision is then not based on the special situation, but on a character trait , as becomes clear, for example, in Richard Wagner's opera Das Liebesverbot : So be it! For his cowardly fickleness . or as in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Götz von Berlichingen Adelheid says about Weislingen: What are you then to speak of fickleness? You who are seldom what you want to be, never what you should be.
Proverbial is the fickleness of luck, Fortuna , Tyche .
Word origin
The term comes from the Middle High German wanc = vacillation that with the word wave is related.
Individual evidence
- ↑ fickleness in Duden.de
- ↑ Libretto of the opera Das Liebesverbot , 2nd act
- ↑ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe : History of Gottfried von Berlichingen with the iron hand in the Gutenberg-DE project
- ^ Germanic etymology
