Simply Unfit

Einstein's view that “Everything should be made as as simple as possible — but not simpler.”, is quoted in the Times this morning. The regime's new scientific adviser has an uphill struggle against the brain dead Labour ministers who choose simpler self aggrandisement coupled with force in response to socio -cultural complexity that offends their authoritarianism.

Yet once a monopoly of power has been gained, by whatever means, no regime can just keep smacking the people into line, and politics becomes largely the science and craft of words; rarely and memorably it becomes the art of words. Schiller's:

Freude, schöner Götterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium!
Wir betreten feuertrunken,
Himmlische, Dein Heiligtum.
Deine Zauber binden wieder,
Was die Mode streng geteilt,
Alle Menschen werden Brüder,
Wo Dein sanfter Flügel weilt.

seems appropriate currently.

Angels are in Berlin till Monday; the German philosophers' Christmas shindig at the Humboldt on experimental pragmatics, which is considering syntax- semantics mismatch and the neural bases of semantic composition, and how pragmatic differences between affirmative and negative sentences are captured in the processes and representations of language comprehension, (and other hot topics), might seem irrelevant to the Leader of the Labour party; not simple enough.

But, speaking with the simplicity necessarily embraced by Gordon Brown: his brain is unable to function at the levels of complexity and emotional responsiveness that are regarded and required as neuro-typical. His unfortunate physical and psychic incapacities have led to death and misery, particularly within our country and in the Middle East. Being Prime Minister , an office for which he is literally not fit, is not his achievement, it is his permanent and public disgrace.