KEY POINTS:
It's been pinned on the wall for months now; a clipping published in The Herald almost a year ago.
The big news then was the discovery of an ancient human skeleton on the remote Indonesian island of Flores. The bones were those of an adult male, quickly dubbed
Homo floresiensis, to identify the place he'd made his home.
Homo floresiensis (should we say Mr Homo floresiensis?) lived between 20,000 and 80,000 years ago and was, apparently, a busy little fellow. The evidence suggests he and his ilk were "skilful tool-makers, hunters and butchers".
But that's not what set the archaeologists agog. What set the archaeologists agog was Mr f's size. He was a "hobbit"; a tiny hominid "just a metre tall and with a skull the size of a grapefruit". The floresiensians were, in short, "an insular dwarf race - humans who became smaller, possibly after the island separated from the mainland and left them marooned".
Apparently this happens when big things like people end up on little places like islands. It's called the "island rule" - species that become smaller do better because they need less to survive.
Which all makes perfect sense. There's an inescapable Darwinian logic to the proposition. But, reading this article a year ago, with its headline How island living can turn people into hobbits, the thought occurred that maybe "island rules" influence more than biology.
Maybe, being remote and insular and confined to an island doesn't just produce small bodies. Maybe it also produces small minds. Perhaps the key characteristic of those separated from the mainland (or mainstream) isn't hobbit habits but hobbit thinking.
And then along came Peter Brown. And the clipping came down from the wall. Because Mr Brown, great archaeologist of intellect that he is, may understand us better than we do ourselves. Call his anti-Asian outburst what you will - shabby populism, brutish British bigotry or the first time in history a dead horse has flogged itself - its real significance is not what was said but the fact it will resonate.
Hobbit thinkers will love it! They'll be nodding their grapefruit-sized heads. No matter that most people - old soldiers, bagpipe players, cake decorators, the planners of insurrection and mediocre politicians - like to stick together. Immigrants must not. And should be chastised if they do.
This is hobbit thinking, of which there is much in this country. Hobbit thinking is why we tolerate a Foreign Minister who won't support his Government's foreign policy. No large, sophisticated, politically literate democracy would sanction such nonsense.
We don't even mind when the ministerial dissenter trumps his own colleagues by using our money to pay for ads telling us how wrong they are!
"We could have done better so I won't support it!" This is a fatuous argument, tailor-made for hobbits.
But suggest that the ludicrous accommodations required by MMP are the best argument for its abolition and the howls would be deafening. "No! We mustn't let the politicians do anything we don't like!" More hobbit thinking.
We cling to our insular status quo, wrapped in the false security of an island race so distant from the world's alarm bells that we hear them faintly, if at all.
And because there's no debate, the evolutionary imperative applies. Hobbit thinking reigns. "Don't sell our airport to foreigners" cry the hobbits, ignoring the fact that it isn't our airport. Or that we don't actually need to own an airport. We just need to own destinations people wish to visit. And let others accept the risk of bringing them here.
As happens on the road with buses and the rail with trains. Inexplicably, we seem determined to spend a fortune re-acquiring that particular antiquated technology. "Backwards to the future!" More hobbit thinking.
It dominates our discourse. It defines our choices. On the question of ownership, for instance, we're adamant. "Public, good. Private, bad." And that's that. The performance of our hospitals and schools may be a bone of contention but no change can be considered. More hobbit thinking.
Echoed and endorsed with exquisite precision by Mr Brown - and his leader - who have deftly reinforced our hobbit view that foreign!!! is a four letter word.
Insular, remote, suspicious, we want none of the world. We'd like it to go away.
All right, Pete, let's do it. Let's turn our backs on the lesser breeds outside our lawns. Better still, let's take from these islands all those things that have come from elsewhere - television, telephones, motor cars, aeroplanes, books, computers, newspapers, radio, the written word, the common law, religion, rock music, oral contraception, maori culture, rugby, cricket, netball, ballet, heat pumps, tractors, texting, Facebook, philosophy, electricity, butter, heart transplants, mathematics, physics, chemistry and even, God help us, MMP.
Then let the archaeologists of tomorrow discover our bare bleached bones and make some sense of our happy hobbit heaven.
