Ewan Morrison - 'What was Nietzsche hiding under that moustache? Bad teeth? A sandwich?'

GIRLFRIEND and I have been getting sick of the cult of good-looking-but-dumb people on telly. Whether it's The X-Factor or the news, anyone who is deemed worthy of more than a second of media time must be both 'sexy' and stupid. It's as if ugly or intelligent people are deemed ethically bad.

Looks helped get Blair into power and the lack thereof may contribute to Brown's downfall; the US elections have an undercurrent of sexiness running through them: websites discuss how 'hot' Sarah Palin is an and whether Obama is a 'hunk'.

So it was, the other night, that we asked each other the big question: were any of the greatest minds in history good looking?

"Socrates," I proposed. "The ugliest man in Greece, snout like a pig, pot bellied, big bulging eyes."

"Jean Paul Sartre," she added. "Cross-eyed dwarf with facial warts.''

"David Hume – a double chin like a duvet."

We were on to something. So it began: a Google search of The A to Z of philosophers in pictures. We huddled over the laptop, typing in names, as the geniuses of history were paraded before us. "Jesus, what was Nietzsche hiding under that moustache? A harelip? Bad teeth? A sandwich?"

"Never trust a man who can't control his own facial hair."

"Jesus," Girlfriend said, "find me a philosopher I can fancy!"

Forty historical geniuses later, the situation, like the faces, was not looking good, but we had accidentally stumbled across a timeless truth: being butt-ugly is an absolute prerequisite for life as a philosopher. It makes sense, if you've got a face like a dog's bum, then you're going to be spending quite a bit of time alone, contemplating the nature of existence.

"A toothless prophet is not listened to with the respect that is his due," mumbled Voltaire, who was famous for his gummy grin. On the head of the pessimist Schopenhauer sprouted two ridiculous tufts that made him resemble the poodles he so famously preferred to the company of humans. Heidegger's little square moustache looked better on Hitler. Hegel had the baggy facial skin of a geriatric bloodhound. John Stuart Mill looked like a skull with sideburns, a product no doubt of his utilitarian diet.

"Wait," Girlfriend called out. "Plato was a shag!"

Sure enough, he looked like Cary Grant in a toga.

"But the statues are all fake, made four hundred years after he died. There's no real images of him anywhere."

Then a revelation came to us. Plato was the problem. With his ideals of other-worldy perfection and beauty he turned his eye away from the real world, while pig-faced Socrates and the motley crew of repulsives that followed him, rubbed our noses in reality. Perhaps, we thought, this could be the flaw in our culture: we've been so obsessed with platonic idealised beauty that we've failed to face the immense ugliness behind the skin-deep smiles.

There's been much talk about the radical new change that has to happen in the post-crash world. This could be it.

Our lives have been ruled for too long by the good– lookers, and the political results have been grotesque. It is time to turn the tables and build a better looking future, ruled by the timeless wisdom of the uglies.