The higher idiocy

I’ve often thought that there are some forms of stupidity that are available only to the very intelligent. Sometimes you read or hear a really brainy person saying something colossally dumb that wouldn’t occur to a lesser mortal. There is no word for this concept in English but possibly the Germans have a very long one.

Martin Amis – you guessed! – says in this transcript of his session at last week’s Hay Festival in Mexico: 

I always used to think that there’s only one flaw with Pride and Prejudice, and that is the absence of a 30-page sex scene between Elizabeth and Darcy.

As Bertrand Russell said, “This is one of those views which are so absolutely absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them.”