The difference between Sangiulian And Socrates is that one said “I only know one thing, that I know nothing” while the other is so convinced that he knows everything that he pushes his display of erudition to a point where you begin to suspect that he really knows nothing.
His latest lectio magistralis concerns Columbus (the admiral, I think, not the lieutenant) who wanted to reach the Indies by circumnavigating the Earth. No one would have said a word if the minister had not felt the need toto add that Columbus was inspired by Galileo’s theoriesborn 72 years after the landing of the caravels.
It’s a shame, because Sangiuliano always starts well. Do you remember? «When one thinks of Paris, he thinks of the Arc de Triomphe». Anyone who is not a communist and in bad faith will recognize that the sentence was relevant. If it had ended there. Unfortunately, it didn’t end there: «And when you think of London, you think of Times Square».
Same story with the Strega award: «The stories of the finalist books make you think». A little vague, but perfectly in tune with the context. Once again it would have been enough to stop. And instead the unfortunate man added: “I’ll try to read them”.
Where does this need to always slip in some slippery postscript come from? Perhaps from an inferiority complex that leads him to overdo it.
Sangiuliano is not addressing us mere mortals, but to the left-wing intellectuals by whom he would so much like to be appreciated. But they are even smarter than him. They speak complicated: so, when they don’t know something, no one notices.
