Last Friday Cat Show. 9/10/2021
VG: So guys, fun as this show has been, I am thinking of taking it off the air. At least for a while. Of course, the world goes on, and it is important to try to understand and come to terms with it, but as we all know, there are different ways of comprehending things And it is high time we try something different.
HOBBS: Wait a minute. What is this nonsense about different ways of understanding the world. There is my way, or dare I say, our way, which is correct one, and there is constantly myopic, constantly self-congratulatory, constantly narcissistic way of Alice. What else is there? And why taking the show off the air? I smell the rat. Who benefits from this action? Did you get some lucrative offer from VK, so that you can leave FB and start writing for them?
ALICE: Vladimir will never leave FB. He loves it, and if I am narcissistic, so is he. He loves his self-reflections. Be they reflections in a bottle, or icy waters, or in the comments of his readers.
VG: I don’t know about narcissistic reflections, but I do like FB. It is an amazing instrument. Readers of the XVII-XVIII centuries loved to read the stories about a student and the devil that he saves. So in gratitude, this devil, called Asmodeo, takes the student around Madrid, lifts a roof of any room the student wishes, and they can observe people at their best and worst. This voyeuristic pleasure available only to the student and his helper in some pre-science fiction is now available to everyone on FB. You want to see what people eating, sure. FB will provide it. You want to see them sun tanning on the beach. Sure thing. People’s vices, virtues, obsessions – are all here. You don’t even have to lift the roof. Just get to someone’s page. And get endless amount of fish they’ve caught, or mushrooms they’ve collected.
HOBBS: You are right about the obsessions. Some posts pictures of various streets or houses, imagining themselves as the flying devil and the student. Others are fighting the three letter agencies and the BS that they produce: NPR, BBC, NYT, CIA, WHO. Basically, any three-letter acronym tells the world: have BS, will travel. Not sure the fight against these three-headed monsters can be won. You expose one, they come up with another; used to be KKK, now it is CNN. But, at least, a lot of people refuse to surrender to these three-headed hydras.
ALICE: Your analogy with Lesage characters is appropriate, except that in these stories, we just don’t see what people want us to see. On FB there is always beautifully set up plate with some smoking stew, but nobody shows the dirt in the corners of the kitchen. While Asmodeo and Cleofas could see exactly that.
VG: Well, you do have a point. I guess we, the consumers of the social media, are not as privileged as those who work for it. We see only facades, while these guys can indeed pick up any roof, and spy on anything we say or even think. Still, if any exhibition, is also hiding, then any hiding is also exhibition. One can learn a lot of secrets by what people choose to exhibit. Think about the commemorations of 9/11. We’ll hear a lot of stories about heroic firefighters, or poor victims, or even about Afghanistan and now officially condemned war. But I am not sure we’ll hear anything about what actions by what corporations or politicians made the whole thing possible. In other words, a lot of things will be hidden beneath the official BS or unofficial paranoia: impunity of the powerful, and helplessness and despair of the powerless first and foremost.
HOBBS: But this impunity has an expiration date. Nothing is that permanent. Impunity, in fact, carries with it the seeds of its own destruction. No matter how beautiful or well-constructed facade is, if it is not supported by the constantly modified and well-maintained structure, it will collapse. Of course, the world is made of liars, vested in maintaining the facades, but the more efforts are put into it, the less efforts are invested into the maintenance of the structures.
ALICE: There is nothing wrong in sneaking behind the facades. That’s the task of our honest reporters of NPR and honest politicians at DNC. They will expose the maniacs who want to enslave women in Texas, who want to bring back the medieval laws, who want o resurrect the Jim Crow America. I suspect that you, Vladimir, want to close the show because you don’t want to hear any criticism for your obscurantist views. All you want to do is to let Hobbs quote you for the morsel of salmon, mind you. While I have integrity, and will never quote neither you, nor Carlson Tucker, nor anyone associated with anti-progressive media, even if you offer me three morsels.
VG: Well, not sure that your criticism, annoying and obnoxious as it is, is the reason. I am on Sabbatical this semester, and I have to finish the book, that’s I’ve been writing for quite some time now. And don’t think that I am silencing any of you. If you are in the mood, please write something on my page. I’ll be commenting too, the world is too crazy to be left without a comment. And let’s reconvene next semester. If we three feel that we still have something to discuss, we’ll come back. In the meantime, let’s thank your listeners for their loyalty and their support.
