A letter a day to number 10. No 1,058
Tuesday 14 April 2015.
Dear Mr Cameron,
It is very strange living in a country where money is the measure of worth and success is measured by how much money people have. It is especially strange that people who have inherited wealth and status are considered (especially by themselves it seems) to be a superior kind of people altogether.
Ignorance and stupidity are not virtues and this fetish for adulating and idolising status, notoriety and wealth displayed across all forms of main stream media is about as shallow and vapid as it gets and yet it is pursued on an industrial scale.
Richard Feynman, one of the finest scientists the world has ever seen, said, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool”. Having fooled yourself, to display that for all the world to see as some kind of virtue, is really just to make an embarrassing display of your own foolishness, not matter how loud the applause.
Feynman was awarded the Nobel prize in Physics, but as he observed, “Imagination reaches out repeatedly trying to achieve some higher level of understanding, until suddenly I find myself momentarily alone before one new corner of nature’s pattern of beauty and true majesty revealed. That was my reward”. The Nobel prize was a recognition of his exceptional contribution to Physics, but his reward was always his relentless curiosity and the insights he gained.
No one, as far as I know, has ever been awarded the Nobel prize for self serving, self aggrandising, conceit or stupidity although many receive notoriety and awards for such behaviour. Katy Hopkins springs to mind, whose career has been entirely built around her own conceit and the pursuit of vindictive nastiness as a career. Her actual contribution to human development and progress can only be measured in negative terms although she is clearly amply rewarded for that.
You and your government reward the rich whilst punishing the poor, Iain Duncan Smith pursues the poor relentlessly, punishing and penalising them at every turn. Your government have not only established that as policy but also promoted that as necessary and virtuous. The reality is that such policies are draconian, Dickensian, Victorian, vindictive and asinine, driving the nation remorselessly backwards. Your evident displays of superiority and arrogant hypocrisy are, in fact, the measure of a fool, deserving not just of being voted out of office, but soundly mocked as well. Caring for those less well off than oneself is a sign of maturity, before seeking high office you really should have considered growing up first.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-speech.html
http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2013/02/27/mps-gear-up-for-lively-bedroom-tax-debate
Fear and Loathing in Great Britain 