Cat Show. 1/22/2021

VG: Well, now with Biden in the White House and Trump in Florida, and the transition of power carried out as smoothly as ever, what have we learned? And what do you make of the last four stormy years?

ALICE: We learned one very simple thing. That Americans prefer stability, normalcy, and decency. That America welcomes all colors, and all genders, and all sexual orientations. And these important values are finally returning. No more crazy oscillations of policies, no more hectic and zigzagging actions, no more bullying, erratic twitting, or ignoring the insights of science and education. Educated and enlightened people of both coasts can finally sigh a sigh of relief. Too much depends on America, to let it act in such unpredictable and irrational way.

HOBBS: I think we’ve learned something entirely different. That it actually works. That BS pays, that fear mongering and massive propaganda campaign pays. That whipping people into heights of paranoia pays. That crowds are as easily manipulated now and they were then. I am afraid these are all the wrong lessons. Media should speak the truth to power, it should educate people, rather than whipping them into frenzy through scare-mongering, demonizing and scape-goating.

But ultimately we’ve learned that there is a power sharing at stake here. It is no longer white men from Harvard and Yale who run our country. It is Indian and Asian, and African American and Latinos multisexers who went to Harvard and Yale who demand their place at the governing table.

VG: I see where you guys are going. Long time ago, in his Notes from Underground, Dostoevsky brought in this rebel, who resents that two times two is four. He wants to replace it with five. He hates rationality, and pragmatism, and utilitarianism. He hates the iron logic of British science and industry. He suggests that all that this pragmatism and meritocracy and science have to offer is another tower of Babel, another monument to human hubris.

ALICE: Yes, I remember we had a conversation about this story. But why caprice is better than logic? Why irrationality is better than rationality? Why twitting crazy stuff about “covfefe” is better than a rational ban on this nonsense. Your underground man might rebel against 2x2=4, but all he offers is 3, not 5. And that’s exactly what Trump had offered to all of us: three. While promising five of course, as all demagogues always do.

HOBBS: Irrational hatred of Trump is not rationality, dear Alice. Getting hysterical about any nonsense he tweets or says is not rationality. Attributing fascism, violence, hatred, conspiracy theories and rebellions to Trump supporters while condoning the same nonsense in your side, is not rationality. Getting into fits of frenzy over the dude on the street not wearing a mask, is highly irrational. Equally irrational is to think that few Russians with bad grammar and even worse knowledge of American culture can throw in the elections, while thousands and thousands of DNC minions can’t.

VG: Alice is highly whimsical and susceptible to gaslighting from NYT, but she has a point. Trump did offer three instead of four. He was correct to challenge four in my opinion, but whatever he had to offer, never amount to much. 2x2=4 is the wall, according to Dostoevsky’s underground man. Did Trump offered to destroy it? Did he offer to fly over it? No! In fact, while challenging some walls, he offered to build many others. You don’t deal with walls in this manner.

HOBBS: Well, in that case, we can call Trump a some sort of a failed messenger. He had a message, but couldn’t deliver it. Nobody particularly likes cynical and pragmatic Grand Inquisitors who think they know how to run the world. The Grand Inquisitors, who make sure there are no heretics who can challenge the establishment and its received opinions. The establishment that will go an extra mile to make sure that there are no Socrates, or Tolstoys, or Ghandies, or MLKs. People who think, feel, and act outside the box. In Dostoevsky’s Legend of Grand Inquisitor, the opponent of Grand Inquisitor is not an Underground Man, but Christ. It is His love, and sacrifice, and noble faith in humanity potential, which are rejected by Grand Inquisitor as being too irrational, not based on experience and science, too demanding or naïve.

ALICE: What are you talking about? Am I in a madhouse? Trump as forerunner of Christian message? Have you been listening to Rush Limbaugh or something? Vladimir, we need interference. Hobbs is clearly losing it. Happens to a lot of people who read too much of Dostoevsky, a deranged author who was anti-Semitic, conservative and nationalistic monarchist to boot. His books have to be replaced with the Amanda Gorman’s poetry. This twenty two year old is an inspiration to us all. She teaches us that 2x2=4 is bad when it is in the hands of white men. But when women of color and other highly underprivileged individuals proclaim that 2x2=4, it becomes a revolutionary and transformative act. In fact, I am so transformed that I demand an outfit like hers, and I am not settling on some $7.95 flee color.

VG: Well, not sure how revolutionary it is. Establishment by any other name is still establishment. And Hobbs is right. It is not particularly rational or scientific. In fact, it simply knows how to camouflage its highly irrational and bizarre prejudices and follies with the words of science. As did Grand Inquisitor, of course. As do so many scientists, who, as Swift observed, think that they can govern the earth sphere only because they are capable of calculating the angles, lines and their relationship on a mathematical sphere.

HOBBS: You bet. Biden, this champion of normality and science, appoints all Obama’s cold-warriors and war-mongers back into the office and imagines it is “scientific.” He re-appoints Jen Psaki, one of the most tongue-tied and uneducated people who ever entered White House--Trump crowd including --as his spokeswoman! And what does this Psaki do the second day at her job? Declares that US will hold Russia accountable for its reckless and adversarial actions. It takes a special kind of ignorance and gall for a post-Trump American to start accusing other countries in reckless and adversarial actions. Replacing Pompeo with Psaki is not scientific. In fact, it is highly anti-Darwinian.

VG: OK, Hobbs. Don’t push it, and don’t forget the new mantra: If it is Democratic, it is decent, normal, and scientific.