Different Ways Of Spelling Why

Human ingenuity has always been highly regarded. At least in theory. An example comes in the field of robbery. Armed robbery has always been a more serious offence than simple robbery. This is because it is easy enough to rob places using your arms. Doing it without your arms is much more ingenious and consequently subject to a lesser sentence in recognition of the creativity involved.

It is therefore sad that some of the most ingenious people in our society have never been given the credit they deserve. On the basis of antiquated stereotyping they are seen as negative influences rather than positive. Inventiveness is inventiveness and all manifestations of it should be equally well regarded.

Golfer Greg Norman is one example. His performance record is a fine one but one particular aspect of his work has been seen negatively rather than positively. Greg Norman is considered to be unacceptably proud of himself. The story goes that someone related seeing Greg Norman at a function and was asked whether Norman's head was touching the sides of the room. Yet Greg Norman also wears hats on the golf course. He is distinguished from other players by his specially designed wide brimmed panemas. The significance of this appears incomprehensible to the media but is obvious to everyone else. By asking people to make hats big enough to fit his head Greg Norman has solved the entire unemployment problem in the hat industry. There are considerable social benefits to this but Mr. Norman's enemies would rather remain ignorant of these than leave their comfort zones of prejudice and celebrate his achievement.

The great car manufacturer Henry Ford II has also been unfairly disparaged for a particular piece of ingenuity on his part. In 1958 he introduced the Edsel car. It was the wrong car in the wrong place at the wrong time. So much so that Stephen Pile included it in his Book of Heroic Failures and it has been a byword for grand mistake ever since. At a time when smaller and more fuel efficient cars were gaining in popularity the Edsel was a huge gas guzzler more suited to the swells of a different era. Furthermore there were repeated problems with doors, windows and the like. Little did most people realise what Henry Ford II had achieved by producing this monstrosity. No one wanted to be seen owning an Edsel because it made you look like an idiot. The average family man soon developed an aversion to any Edsel-resembling vehicle. This immediately gave Ford the opportunity to exploit a new market. Previously Ford cars had been bog standard vehicles. Now the company had driven away that market it could appeal to film stars and the like. Those who were above the ordinary would never be seen driving ordinary cars. They would drive the cars that the man in the street would never touch and Ford could charge them what they liked for the privilege. Henry Ford had many enemies and one of the few things they could console themselves with was the commercial failure of the Edsel. It remains a source of deep embarrassment to Ford that its newer executives failed to capitalise on the opportunity the founder had given them and other marques fell by default into supplying this more profitable market.

But perhaps the most ingenious of people in modern times has been Lady Thatcher. As Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher she introduced a number of economic and social reforms that no other Prime Minister had dared do. These reforms were either loved or hated and latterly most people who were there try to distance themselves from them. The ingenuity of Mrs. Thatcher however lay not in her reforms but in exploiting her unique position. Few would have expected that a Conservative would be the first woman Prime Minister in the U.K. By definition the conservative choice would be the usual man. Realising the anomaly Mrs. Thatcher ensured that she became so despised and discredited that the United Kingdom is never likely to elect a woman Prime Minister again. The radical Thatcherite reforms demonstrate what happens if tradition is overthrown and the by definition more arbitrary alternative takes over. A Prime Minister whose effectiveness depends on what time of the month it is is bad news for everyone. Mrs. Thatcher showed herself the true antimony of her predecessor Edward Heath by showing up radical or progressive conservatism for the gross anomaly it is. When the same reaction sets in to the denatured Blairite Labour Party the Conservatives will have every chance of regaining power on a platform of absolute monarchy and feudal servitude as they would then finally have the policies which reflect their fundamental nature.

If ingenuity is a good thing it should always be celebrated. You cannot praise some and damn others. Should something ingenious actually make sense? Our prejudice implies so. But when we carry on committing the same senseless sins for generation after generation we begin to see why we would rather condemn some creative thinking as stupid than see our familiar misconducts in the same light.