Cat Show 7/23/2021
VG: A well known Russian poet of XIX century, Karolina Pavlova, wrote a book, she called, Double Life. She wrote it in prose and poetry, to convey the duality between our prosaic existence and poetic visions. I feel, that the concept “double life” can be applied further. It is also like real vs. fake, complex vs. simple, artistic vs. journalistic, objective vs. self-serving.
HOBBS: You might as well be talking about truth vs. propaganda. Of course, there is truth in propaganda and propaganda in truth, so intention might be important here. Why are some news over reported, while others – underreported. So now, the Japanese organizer of Olympics pageant is forced to resign over some childish Holocaust joke that he cracked up in the 1990s, while Ukrainians, who can’t miss a day without turning a former murderer and Nazi collaborator into a national hero, are embraced as poor victims? If that’s not double life, than what is?
ALICE: Of course, there is something that you might call “a double standard,” but it has a noble purpose behind it. We are correcting the past wrongs. As simple as that. So innocent people of today have to suffer for the past wrongs, and then some more innocent people of the future will have to suffer for today’s wrongs. That’s what keeps the ball rolling. Pretty soon, every organization would have an employee from the Ministry of Past Wrongs. They will make sure that 1. The wrongs continue so that the ministry is functioning and growing. 2. It would provide and employment to at least one third of population. For those, whom you call “journalists.” That is, for morally upright people with a zeal for action. Most of the people are too self-satisfied to care. Like that smug and condescending cat, Hobbs, for example. But we also have plenty of creatures with a zeal for justice. Like me. I’ve been abused in this household for years, so I can’t sleep until the past wrong is corrected.
VG And the new wrong is created. That’s a rather silly logic, if you ask me.
HOBBS: It is not that silly. If according to Alice’s calculation we have one third of population ready to fight for whatever cause they have, maybe it is much safer for the government organize them into a Ministry of Past Wrongs, rather than letting them lose, violent and spontaneous. Brits are leading the way in this as in many other ways. They always organize these people into White Helmets, Belingcats, Institutes for Stagecraft, Institutes for Study of War and Peace, and other MIPW (Ministry of Past Wrongs) outfits. Americans have their version, they call them NGOs. Antifa, pussy hatters, Seniles for president, also known as DNC (Democratic National Committee) – these are all double lifers. Pretending to be independent while doing their work for the MIPW.
ALICE: We are not double lifers. It is you guys that always try to come up with complexity, and ambiguity, and ambivalence, and dialectics, and metaphors and analogies. We have it simple: Our leaders and sponsors tell us who is the fascist of the day. And we put on our brown shirts attack them. It might be Russians, or homophobes, or toxic masculinists, or dead white men. Bad guys, in short.
VG: That’s exactly the simplicity that tormented Dostoevsky. He was shocked by the simplicity on both right and left. He understood the impulses that sustained both sides, he sympathized with desire to shake the status quo and correct the wrong or prevent the abuse and violence by preserving the status quo, but he was also shocked by the failure to see how simplistic the arguments and solutions of these “journalists” were. He felt the need for the second more profound dimension. The world in not divided in bad victimizers and good victims. It is much more complex and intertwined.
HOBBS: Things are complex, indeed. Cubans or Venezuelans or Colombians are protesting for a good reason. Some are suffering from the abuse of the lefties, others – from the righties. We know that any power can be corrupt and abusive. Any caring and intelligent government tries to prevent the protests by addressing the explosive issues beforehand. And outsiders in these situations should limit themselves to providing some material help, rather than exploiting the suffering. Yet, it is not happening. The minute there is unrest somewhere, US sends its envoys from the Ministry of Past Wrongs, and they start simplifying things: It is all the fault of Russians, or communists, or autocrats, or retrogrades. When there was a Soviet Union, they would get into an act as well, and start supporting the other side. But they don’t do it any more. Thus, we have a rather one-sided propaganda, and the truths are shaped by the MIPW.
ALICE: I see where you are going. So when Germany and US sign their agreement on North Stream II, and point to the need to counteract “the malign Russian activity” – it is all the result of MIPW? When Germans are told to invest 175 millions in one fund, and several other millions into another – to renovate Ukraine and make it more independent of malign Russian activity, it is all the result of MIPW intended to bribe and silence Ukrainians? Are you saying that Germany does not have an independent policies and is just getting its orders from MIPW?
HOBBS: Of course they are. They did a lot of wrong in the past, and thus, can be very easily bullied and manipulated in the present. It is almost as bad to be a German as being a white. And to be a white German male? No wonder, MIPW appointee, Merkel, bullies poor Germans day in day out. Have you heard of this female German journalist, reporting from a flooded area recently? Before reporting, she covered her face in mud. To look less white and to bully the rest of the Germans for watching TV and sitting in the comfort of their homes, instead of running around like mad dogs and correcting the past wrongs.
VG: Yes, this is simplicity and propaganda at its best. Or at its worst. Or rather it is “worst” for any thinking person, and “best” for one third of world population who are all trigger happy to correct another past wrong and are just waiting for a whistle.
