Duodecimal aside
Perhaps I have abused this term, Duodecimal, by using it out of the context of base twelve. This would be a shame. Since math class in childhood, I have adored base twelve, and have always recommended it — often even in preference to base sixteen. For if God hadn’t meant us to count in twelves, why did He endow us with eight fingers, two thumbs, and two feet?
Alternatively, in light of our further two ears, I could recommend the tetradecimal system — anything to sabotage our glib, metric-friendly, decimal arrangements. An octal numeral system would be glib enough, doubling when expansive into hexadecimals (not to be confused with fine Babylonian sexadecimals). But I long for thirds as well as musical fourths. If we cannot partition the world neatly into threes, what can we partition it into? Fifths, or tenths, will not do, and I have never considered a frequency ratio of 3:2 (“Twinkle, twinkle, little star”) to be quite perfect, whatever the musicians say.
Binary can also be Godly. Think of the number of sexes. There are precisely two.
All of this is irrelevant to my current argument, however. It is about the prevalence of twelve-year-olds in the management of the BBC, and apparently, all other institutions. I am beginning to notice this, almost obsessively: that every modern, publicly educated human with progressive views has abandoned his spiritual growth, by age twelve (at the latest). He does not accumulate wisdom after that, and often he has already “terminated” at six, four, or three.
I don’t mean this literally, of course. So far as I’m aware, most of the younger sort of humans still pass through puberty, and then, all the later stages of physical maturity and decline. Indeed, judging from the present popularity of “sex changing,” and the universal addiction to recreational drugs, puberty is the terminal point.
I’ve been testing this theory in my walks about my native Parkdale (which the bureaucrats propose to rename “Taiaiako’n,” to confirm that it really belongs to the bureaucrats who administer indigenous people). Twelve years old would seem to be the emotional maximum.