Cat Show 06/26/20
VG: I want to talk about the power of institutions. People come and go, but institutions remain. Somehow, history brings us very few examples of people changing institutions, but plenty of examples of institutions squashing people. By institutions, I mean something what Americans like to call, “deep state.”
HOBBS: Yes, that’s an institution for you all right. “Americans discovering America.” That’s one of the fundamental American institutions: discovering old things that were well known to anyone else for centuries. Now they discover “deep state,” now they learn that it is good to smash sculptures to the old rulers, now some discover that they are not so exceptional after all, and that their institutions, like institutions of many, are based on robbery, slaughter, and slavery.
ALICE: Well, according to you guys, no progress is possible. But we know that countries and institutions develop differently. And some do change. Peter the Great changed Russia, Stalin molded it to its liking. Americans have changed plenty of their institutions, and now are working hard at making all of them look like a country. Who wants to see white men at the top positions of all sorts of institutions? That’s what should be smashed once and for all. The institutional power of white males, and black cats, I would add. All this should be assigned to the dustbin of history.
VG: Alice, you are a notorious slogan-meister. No wonder, you are so happy with the current lockdown, and I see you attending all sorts of zoom-meetings, and classes, and lectures. That’s where you learn the current slogans. But talk is cheap. We have plenty of police departments who have black officers or even females in charge. And have they changed, or the institutions changed them. Do you think Obama has changed the country? Great Russian novelist, Goncharov, has a fine novel, called “Usual Story.” About a starry-eyed youth arriving to St. Petersburg, hoping to change and transform it. He is shocked by his cold and cynical uncle who does not share his enthusiasm. Well, some years later, we recognize this youth as cold cynical uncle who greets his own protégé from provinces with the words of cynical wisdom.
HOBBS. It is a paradox of which Tolstoy, by the way, was very well aware. That’s what he constantly describes in War and Peace, and even in Anna K. The institutions, the buzz, the external power that keeps on pushing individuals, even as powerful as Napoleon, in particular direction. Yet, the whole thing is like surfing for Tolstoy. There is a wave, and there is nothing you can do with it. But skillful individuals manage to ride it, while fools are crushed. That’s what Kutuzov does in War and Peace.
ALICE: Call it what you want, but as you both acknowledge, some skillful people recognize the power of institutions and ride it, getting where they want it. Please, don’t forget. There are various currents and turbulences in the water. It is like me, trying to operate between Vladimir and you, lazy and spoiled Hobbs. You mentioned Peter the Great. Yes, he didn’t diminish much the power of old Boyar families, who started by resisting his initiatives. But he knew, that there are other forces boiling in the country. And he unleashed them and their institutions. Consequently, it is the power of the Young Russia, that redirected the energy of old Boyars, and the country went into a different direction. So I would add, that yes, you can’t really ban the old institutions by ukaz. But you can harness it to your cause, if you add new energies and new currents.
VG: Wow, that’s pretty insightful. I guess, maneuvering between me and Hobbs, have taught you something after all. You see, Hobbs, you always try to convince me that Alice is beyond repair, that she is just a bullhorn of NPR and establishment, but it appears that she’s been learning something. We better watch out for her. Remember Stalin. People think that he was just a willful autocrat. Far from it. He was actually un ultimate insider, and the surfer of institutional waves. While Trotsky was giving his brilliant speeches, Stalin was putting his people in all sorts of new emerging institutions. So when it would come to vote, it would be always Stalin who’d win, while haughty theoreticians managed to ostracize all sorts of people. And only after securing
HOBBS: So you are saying that one has to be an ultimate insider, if one wants to change an institution. That things can change only from within. That a crusading outsider is treated as a virus. That is can be crushed or it can crush the system, but they can’t work together. That makes sense. So from now on, Alice, watch out. I will start working on legislature that would limit female cats from receiving morsels of human food. Since it is very bad for them and ruins their ability to hunt mice. Since Vladimir is in my pocket, I’ll get all the necessary votes.
ALICE: Nonsense. Remember that a while ago, I’ve introduced the constitutional amendment that gave me the power of veto, since I am an integral part of this household, and therefore have to have a veto power. And you were so happy to support it, because you thought that you’d use your veto power to get what you want. Too late now.
VG: Hah. I can’t believe it, you two seem to have me cornered. That’s what I call deep state. The power of cats to run my household, preventing me from brushing you when I want, from clipping your nails when I want, and from throwing my slippers at you, when I want. Guess what. I guess, I don’t have anything else to do, but to bring in two new cats and start changing the system from within.
