In Praise of Confetti

The British monarchy is getting a lot of kicks lately: Simon Schama, the historian, Martin Amis the novelist, and others are taking this season of celebrating egg resources (yes I refer to the wedding of William and Kate here, simply at the functional level of heredity) as a time to highlight the bovine intelligence of royalty. Thereby they merely draw attention to the mechanical intellect's own lack of insight: were human intelligence so important there would be more of it in the cosmos. Because the whole, cannot be comprehended by a linear intellect which assumes the verbal mind can draw sufficient conclusions about the greater whole of which we are apart. Since this is not the function of the mechanical intellect, the success of those verbal points are not even in question. The academics assume those who disagree with their assessment are limited, rather than looking upon the possible limitations of their own mechanical summaries. An interesting lesson to be drawn is that the limitations of mechanical thought never even occur to such Oxford luminaries. Pondering the function of spectacle, and the triumph of the so-called mediocre, pondering objectively, is a possible path to greater insight.