Dissenting Futilitarian no. 7
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Transcript of Dissenting Futilitarian no. 7
D EAR ... hmm, who is left? The
MPs are gone, returned to their
homes for the summer; my task of writing to
them is done. So what now? There is no one
to write to. - These were my thoughts as I
sat down to begin a new letter, but while I
pondered this question a voice broke into my
consciousness.
‘Come now,' it said, ‘what really has changed?
You have been writing to absent readers all
along! Have you not been mailing out hundreds
of broadsheets, printed at your own expense,
that your readers would not open? That is
what you have been told, by those who know
the habits of MPs much better than you do.
So what is different now? You have written
to readers who would not read you: why stop?
Write more, continue! Readers who will not
read you, my good man, are everywhere!
‘Do you not see that it is in fact your duty to
put forth what the citizens of a free country
will refuse to read. If you do not write it,
will you not thus force them not to read it?
(Who has any freedom to read what has not
been written?) Would you force them, Sir, by
refusing to write? No, for the sake of Freedom
you must continue to write what every free
citizen who comes across you will then have
the blessed liberty to ignore! Let Freedom
ring , Sir!' - Therefore, ...
D EAR w homev er , DEAR
phantom reader , MY
DEAR canadian : it is my pleasure to write
to you because you are there - faithful and
constant!
When the MPs to whom I had been writing
were gone, I was glad - yes, glad - thrilled
to get away from the foul issue , for it
had tired me. But my respite from it was
brief, much too brief, for a solicitous friend
soon enjoined me to pay attention to the
Internet. Oh the Internet. Woe, woe, I cry:
what creation is this, that we have chained
ourselves to it; what treacherous, wobbling
stage have we constructed, on which to strut
and prance about and flatten our faces? (But
enough of that.) My friend had directed me
to an interesting corner of this virtual realm
in which a daily Debate was underway on
Motion 312: the very subject of my interest in
these past months.
However, I wisely stop myself here. ‘Daily
Debate '? I dare not use the word ‘Debate '
at all, for one of the lessons the Internet
has lately confirmed is that we do not
know w hat constitutes debate . No,
indeed we do not. And a serious matter it
is, too. If Debate broke into our house and
ate our dinner, we would not know what was
chewing our noodles. If we had to find Debate
in a crowd, because its house was burning,
we would mistake a thousand other things
for Debate before we turned to anything that
actually is one.
Yes, this conclusion - to which I have at
last been led by the wild antics of ‘Debaters'
- was recently confirmed in me by the
exchange I witnessed at close quarters on the
Internet. It has led me to make the following
pronouncement: whereby I would see ...
t h e p u b l i c c h a r g e d w i t h l am e n t a b l e
i g n o r an c e ab o u t d e b a t e
Yes, there you have it: consider
yourself so charged. D o You know
what Debate involves, and (very much to
the point) what it excludes? Are You among
the Enlightened who might lead us in
Debate (for you know what it is) or are you
one of the many proclaiming we ‘have had
a Debate', when all that you know is that
‘we have argued'. Is Debate simply arguing?
‘Oh, here we go,' you will perhaps say, with
that sour look on your face, ‘another abstract
disquisition on some lofty Idea!' But I am
charging you with not knowing what you are
talking about:
it is you who
are using the
word. Look sour
about that.
Believe me, it is
worth your time,
to see if you
have a grade-
school grasp of
this word you use,
this primary in-
s t r umen t o f
Democracy. Do
you know that
at least: that
Debate is an instrument of Democracy, a chief
tool and protection of civ ilization?
What is to be said for a Citizenry that cannot
recognize it, and so does not know when its
fences and protections have rotted & collapsed?
t h e VEHICLE o f d e b a t e
What is debate? If I call it a
v ehicle , I suggest that it is:
a a means of conv eyance ,
b by which we might get somew here .
Imagine a group of people who, aware that
v ehicles have been invented, propose
to manufacture such vehicles, so that we
might convey ourselves about in them more
cheaply, shall we say. But these Deceitful
Manufacturers produce vehicles that, as we
who purchase them soon discover, do not
work. I would venture to say there is a Fool
in this scenario somewhere, the chief signal
of raging folly being that the vehicles in
question lack such components as wheels and
drive shafts! But who, pray, is the Fool: these
Charlatan Manufacturers, or the Buyers who
have purchased their goods?
The Makers seem rather canny (despicable,
yes, but not foolish), for so finely gauging
the gullibility of the Buyers. It is the Buyers
whom we shall have to charge with a rather
Stupendous Ignorance, both for lacking the
wits to notice that these vehicles have no
wheels , and for lacking the sense to conclude
that what has no wheels will not drive , and
that what will not drive cannot be a car .
And that is our situation exactly, with regard
to Debate . In my next letter, I will show you
this deficiency in examples - but I can show it
to you right now, in yourself, for the features
I shall now insist define a Debate you will
promptly dismiss as not features of Debate at
all. And so the blindness with which I charge
the public can be found quite near to home.
We do not know the defining features
of Debate : the very features that are as
essential to its being as wheels are to a car.
And, indeed, we are worse off, and even more
foolish, than the Junk-Bucket buyers, for we
get into the Debate and sit wheel-less in
our Driveways, pumping toxins out our tail-
pipes and making a loud sound, never noticing
that we are going now here .
We do not notice that our purpose in debate
is not being served - whereas the car-buyers
knew at once that their Crap-Cans did not move
and that their purposes of transport were foiled!
What fools are we, to ‘have Debates' that are
not Debates?! We hear a thing labelled Debate
and glibly parrot this talk - saying that we Are
glad to Engage in Debate and Will Debate any-
one, or claiming that we are Participating in
Debate (“This has been debated as long as man has
existed"), or Have Had One (this is “a debate that
has already taken place") - and so prove ourselves to
know nothing whatsoever about this subject:
for here we sit in our ‘Debate' vehicles,
stock-still and wheel-less in our driveways,
making a blustering noise.
If we engage in a Debate and go now here , yet
remain convinced that Debate is being had, we
prove ourselves to be school-children on this
topic, for any True Debate is a vehicle that
will conduct us , like a car, to a Destination .
t h e DESTINATIONo f d e b a t e
T hat destination may not be precisely
where we wish to go, but it will be
somewhere, and it will be forward.
Consign what I am about to say to the rank of
mere opinion , if you must (noting carefully,
however, that the one who calls it an opinion
that ‘Every car has wheels' casts doubt only
upon his own knowledge of cars), but I tell
you that The purpose of a Debate is:
to conduct all of those who are conducting
the debate to a Conclusion ...
that we, conducting the debate, w ill accept .
‘A Conclusion? In the Debate about abortion?!
What nonsense!' “That debate has always been open and
will never close." But which is it: is Debate that
which never closes, or that which does close?
“This is a debate we had back in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. It’s
been settled for decades." (Two quotations from the
same person.) But really, can both things be Debate?
The very reason that we speak of a Debate
being had , and heave great sighs of relief
over blessed closure in a Debate (when we
have reached such closure), is that we have
not completely forgotten the true character
and purpose of a Debate.
Allow me to demonstrate that character and
purpose in a brief and amusing play .
No.
7 19 JULY
2012}}
The DISSEN TING FU TILITARIAN {{
L ET T E R S TO . . . c a n a d i a n s ? F R OM A C I T I Z E N O N T H E S U B J E CT O F T H E P R O P O S E D I N V E ST I G AT I O N I N TO O U R H U M A N I T Y
E n g a g e i n d e b a t e : w e r a c e t o t h e c a u s e ! T h e r e ’ s s c a n t h o p e f o r t h e m , b u t f o r u s t h e r e ’ s a p p l a u s e !
B
CITIZENS' QUIET (SPEECHLESS)
REACTION TO THE
CHARGE OF IGNORANCE
||||||||||||||||||
H A D R I A N D H A RM A
FIN DS HIS WAY
||||||||||||||||||
Scene i. The office of Mr. Cracktop, MP
Our hero, Hadrian Dharma, fearless advocate
of the Public Welfare, gesturing boldly: No, Sir,
I do not accept what you say. I am in Com-
plete Disagreement ! You, Sir, my elected
Representative, are entirely In the Wrong !
Mr. Cracktop: What I say, you would find very
easy to accept if only you would think it through.
Hadrian: Ha! I know very well what you have
in mind: that I follow your thinking and be
led from my purpose. But no: it is not my
purpose that should be abandoned but yours,
as I am arguing for the Public Welfare, while you
stand up for bold inaction and politics as usual!
Cracktop: But Hadrian, what you have
proposed will do nothing for the Public.
Hadrian: What nonsense, Sir! I was robbed
at gunpoint and I am proposing that you
draft a Bill to ban bullets from our land
and make the public safe from such assaults!
Protect our citizens from shootings!
Cracktop: And how would such a Law have
made you saferÉÉÉ?
Hadrian: If I had known there were no
bullets in that gun, because they were utterly
banned , I would have pounced on my attacker
and given him a beating.
Cracktop: But you would not know that.
That man was a Criminal, wouldn't you agree?
Hadrian: What nonsense are you talking? I
refuse to engage with a man who disdains
public safety. You make no point worth answering.
Cracktop: You say that I make no point worth
answering, but answer it and let us see.
Hadrian: No, Sir, I shall not answer. You
are my opponent , and so you wish me to
follow the logic of my opponent , which is
most certainly opposed to me - and thus
designed to dissuade me from my plan to
protect the Public. No! Good evening, Sir: we
have Debated enough! (He exits.)
Cracktop: Gracious me, to my eyes it seems
that we have not Debated at all. But how can
I convince my friend, who now believes I am
against both him and his cause?
Scene ii.
Night. A dark road & beside it a large bush
Up the road comes Hadrian, but as he nears
the bush a masked figure leaps out from
behind it and confronts him:
Masked Figure: Hands up!
Hadrian: Oh, not again!
Figure: Your money or your life.
Hadrian: But I can't see you: it is too dark:
why should I not just run? How do I know
you are any threat to me at all? Maybe you are
a midget with a stick.
Figure: Take your chances, Sir: run if you
wish, but I have a bomb and I will throw it.
Hadrian: You have a what?
Figure: A jar of Greek Fire: and if I throw it,
it will explode, and spray you with flaming
pitch, which you won't get off you: and so you
will burn to cinders in minutes.
Hadrian: I've never heard of this!
Figure: What do you mean? It's a lethal
Banned Substance! Don't you know your own Laws?
Hadrian: Of course I do, but I have never
heard of your ... Greek Jar.
Figure: Darn! Well, no matter, I am quite
prepared for this: come closer while I light
a lamp - and hold this. (The Masked Figure
passes something to Hadrian)
Hadrian:
What is it?
Figure: The
Greek Fire.
H a d r i a n :
I said I didn't
believe in it.
Figure: I know,
I know. (Lights
the lamp) But
do you see
this book? Read
here.
H a d r i a n :
Hmm ... oh! I had no idea. Yes, this is indeed
our Law book: Greek Fire is banned.
Figure: (Reaching into his coat) And I have
a scientific paper here on Greek Fire, if you
care to read ...
Hadrian: No, no: I trust that it is bad if the
Law bans it!
Figure: So you get the picture now, I venture.
Let's start again. I am a Criminal - correct?
Hadrian: Indeed you are, you Thief!
Figure: And Criminals break Laws - quite as
I am demonstrating, since I am now breaking
the Laws against theft.
Hadrian: You filthy Thief!
Figure: Are any other Laws being broken?
Hadrian: What do you mean?
Figure: You are holding a Banned Substance.
Hadrian: Oh, forgive me, here. (Returns the
jar) You are the Criminal; you hold it.
Figure: Thank you. The Criminal, as you
acknowledge, is all too willing to hold the
Banned Substance: and even to acquire what
has been Banned: because breaking Laws is
the Criminal habit. These Statutes (thrusting
the Lawbook upon Hadrian) are respected by
you, not me.
Hadrian: You know, it's odd that you carry a ...
Figure: Do you mind? I am making a point.
Look hard at this jar: are you ready to say,
as you stare at it, that because the contents
of this jar have been banned that there is
no danger to you in it? - I am asking you,
notice, about what you believe. is that what
you believe? That you are safe? Would you
like to pounce on me, as I brandish it, and
give me a beating?
(The masked Figure now
pulls out a pistol, points it at
Hadrian's face, and continues)
I am prepared to shoot you,
Sir - which is most assuredly
illegal. As I point this gun at
your nose, would you kindly
stare into the barrel and
remind yourself that Bullets
have been banned . At least,
imagine that they have! Imagine that a Good
and Fine Citizen has come to your aid in
advance of this crime, and made sure that
there is a Law there, in that Lawbook you
clutch, to assure you that there is no bullet in
this law-abiding gun.
Hadrian: But, just a minute ... (Hadrian
lunges forward and pulls the mask away - to
reveal ... )
Cracktop: My dear friend! Do you now
conclude, with me, that a Law banning
bullets will do nothing to protect the public
against those embarked on using a gun to
break the law?
op
I omit the last speech in our drama - the play's
conclusion - which I allow you to complete
in your own mind, for I suppose we might
wonder whether Hadrian Dharma is man
enough to be corrected. If he finds his way,
just what Way does he choose? The concluding
lines of the play will depend rather greatly,
don't you think, on the character that Hadrian
possesses, and I feel certain you can imagine
more than one denouement.
Yet I am sure that you agree: we know what the
conclusion ought to be! The character that he
ought to have would lead him to admit the
Truth , which is that - having participated in
the argument, and considered the facts (the
gun barrel, the reality) - he truly does not
believe that the gun of a criminal must be
empty, if a Law has been passed to ban bullets.
He sees that the danger remains; he sees what
Mr. Cracktop saw earlier: for they have now
both, together, reached one and the same
Conclusion . And their Debate is concluded .
the HOPE conta ined in debate
Yes, Debate does indeed deliver
Closure , Conclusiv eness - when
we have together been led by it to ack now l -
edge some True Thing, in company with our
fellow man, though we were previously unable
to do so. When we admit, together, the truth
of a thing, we have arrived at a conclusion .
And any properly conducted Debate has
a Conclusion . Do you believe this?
The Conclusion of any true Debate is like a
Waterfall , for all who have been conveyed
to it can behold that it stands there before
them. In common, we perceive it - and indeed
enjoy the commonality of the spectacle that
we have contrived, out of fellow feeling, to
give to ourselves (not to You or to Me alone
but to You in company with Me): for we have
together been conducted to it, by our Debate .
By Debate , we did what was needed to reach
this Waterfall: we listened, we answered
truly, we participated in the discussion - and
it is not your will or my purpose but the
discussion itself that has led us to this
Waterfall, to this spectacle, that we might
behold and enjoy it in common!
This Waterfall, this Conclusion, this Shared
Spectacle in which All Who Are Present
Believe (for we have all been conducted here
by our Debate) is the fruit of our labours -
the fruit of Debate.
Do you know (or not know) that what Debate
involves, as its first and most primary
precondition, is hope that it could
take us - this clamorous lot w ho
began debating in disagreement - to a
conclusion that w e now acknow ledge
together?
Who among us believes that? ‘Debate and
Hope? Sheer Lunacy.' But then what is your
so-called Debate for? And who wants it?
I am, etc.
1 1 D i s s e nt i n g f ut i l ita r i a n . b lo g s p ot.ca