Be Wary Of THIS

There are kinds of conspiracies that fit neatly into the theorizing that goes on more and more nowadays – afterawhile they all seem quite banal though.

And then there are those conspiracies that would likely be utterly meaningless to most people, and yet that have huge negative consequences that are hard to undo once they have been exercised.

A conspiracy is what you call it when several people agree to overcome objective fairness or even previously agreed social standards and rules, in order to benefit themselves at the cost of those who are not in their own small group.

The Guardian Newspaper's photo of the BBC iPhone

Society operates on such complicated bases that sociologists and historians and political scientists and economists have been a long time at deciding what really makes it tick; and they still don't all agree. But all the same, society is larger than a few media chief editors and their unseen Svengalis.

I see a conspiracy.

It is the one whereby people make unilateral decisions about terminologies, and unilateral decisions about meanings to words in common usage. I'm not being jocular here. I really mean it.

By 'unilateral' I mean 'not what the common usage or definition already otherwise is.' I mean that the few and the monolithic overcome the many and the diverse by force and not by logic; 'the few' in this instance being the 'unilateral' part of what I was saying above.

This type of conspiracy has existed in the past and it typically occurs when there is some kind of dictatorship in control and where the leadership goes mad. No one is able to challenge the leadership because of overbalanced sheer power, yet virtually everyone realizes the falseness of the dogma that is being decreed.

Now there are a lot of simple words that the public uses which don't require a lingustic scientist to attest to their 'actual' meaning. The english language being what it is, actually ascribes meanings to words that common speakers also ascribe, and any other donation of meaning has traditionally by english teachers and literate people been called the employment of 'jargon.'

This position is changing, or has indeed already changed perhaps, on account of a tribe of leading people insisting, often or most usually through the media, that they alone give imprimatur upon meanings of things, meanings or words, and just plain meanings fullstop.

And so you will at this minute see the BBC deciding to slip in one definition of the word 'beauty' (such an innocuous thing, you would suppose) when offering to the public that a maths formula is where 'true beauty' resides... And in the instance of the radio version of the story – which appears to indeed have about five variations and guises that it appears under on different websites and locations – it is specifically the formula for the dynamic movement of fluids, that is claimed to be one example, attested by a lady scientist, of sheer and utter true beauty (the formula, that is, not the scientist).

I am not sure why there have come to be so many recent examples in the media of the twisting or misinterpreting of Plato and other ancient philosophers... Beauty is many things and not just one; one facet of something may be imbued with a quality of beauty, but it itself is not 'beauty' per se. Thus it is not 'true beauty.' And never can it be. It is a sensible thing seen through the dark glass of the human senses. That is what Plato actually did say – but here in this recent narrative there is this implication by association of 'maths' into things that the argument just given in the media has the weight of traditional and classical academic thinking. And it certainly does not.

A single maths formula may have the quality of beauty but it is not itself 'beauty.' The whole complicated area that the ancient Greeks went into when they explained what they meant by the purity of beauty, is today mashed up with words like 'pure' and 'austere' and 'perfect' and a lot of other 'extreme' or absolutist words to give you a 'sense' rather than a manifest list describing the standard definition. And it is very dangerous to have people in positions of blanket power, especially media power, start this business of working on people's feelings when they claim that they intend to arrive at specific technical meanings. I always get the feeling then of someone trying to play around with the public's sentiments, and I ask myself why? Maybe it's just a mistake and an accident...

Beauty is a very complicated thing indeed.

2014 Zegna Limited Edition Maserati

For example. Zegna is going to have a go at their idea of a beautiful rendering of the interior of the Maserati Quattroporte this year. Well, you see, it's actually not their idea – because if it were just their idea, the risk is the cars would not sell. No indeed, these vehicles will need to find notes of desire within the hearts and minds of the wealthy buyers that they are in harmony with. It is a public idea of beauty that Zegna will work from. And they mean it to be that.

A premium Champagne manufacturer in France is making a Champagne with deliberate hints of Russian caviar in it, and one could think this is a stupid idea. I don't know; I haven't tried this Champagne. But juxtapositions do work when it comes to art and things of beauty, and it's not even as simple as to say that subtlety is the key. It may not be. Many a great building is brutalist and not subtle at all, and some even combine quite outrageously conflicting themes – a pickle, crystal, steel, open office plans, spiralling motifs – and yet they do work together.

Luvienz 'Caviar' Champagne

No I do not fear the accidental or mistaken gestures in print and media, but the deliberate and shameless and highly-sophisticated high quality types of propaganda.

Oh no, when the establishment thinker starts all this nonsense of measuring the unmeasurable, and determining for you by a scientific method what is 'best' for you – there is something actually serious afoot.

Of course you are quite free to think that media time on the BBC is cheap or free and paid for by the altruistic British citizen and taxpayer who thinks that intellectual wheelspinning by highly-qualified academics is just the thing for any dull afternoon when there is absolutely nothing else going on that could capture the attention of the public or requires to be reported to them since they are the very heart and soul of democracy and have to be served.

Is there something about the maths formula for fluid flow dynamics that can be applied to the flows of money in an economy...? And if so, is it a thing of beauty? And to whom?