Old World meets New 1, 01

Lackey: Bishop of Rome! Vicar of Jesus Christ! Prince of the Apostles, and Primate of Italy! The Cardinal needs an audience.

Pope: Give me 10 minutes. I’m not done with this altar boy yet.

. . .

Pope: Ahh. That’s better. Send in the Cardinal.

Cardinal: Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church! Pederast in Chief! I have ill tidings!

Pope: Cut the crap. Do we have another sex scandal to cover up?

Cardinal: Worse, I’m afraid. The people of the world have finally learned that knowledge is preferable to ignorance.

Pope: What? Impossible. Where could they have learned such a heretical lie?

Cardinal: We’re not sure yet. It has something to do with some pagan idea of the Earth Mother.

Pope: Oh. It’s just some New Age bullshit then. I wouldn’t worry about it. We killed the sacred feminine long ago . . .

Cardinal: The people, it seems, have resurrected the idea. Along with the idea of Christ.

Pope: Wait. Christ was resurrected, and I wasn’t informed?

Cardinal: I didn’t say that Christ was resurrected, Supreme Pederast, I said the “idea” of Christ has been resurrected. And linked to the concept of love, which has been linked to the concept of wisdom, which has been opposed to the concept of ignorance which has been linked to the concept of Satan.

Pope: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What’s all this about concepts. You think I’m interested in Philosophy and education? How could I afford this much bling on a teacher’s salary?

Cardinal: That is what seems to be the problem, sir. The people of the world have finally realized that intelligence is preferable to servitude.

Pope: You’re boring me. Bring me a choir boy!

Old World meets New 1, 00

Adviser: Master, the people of the world are revolting.

Tyrant: I know. They’re disgusting, aren’t they.

Adviser: Yes, they are, sir. But that’s not what I mean.

Tyrant: You mean, revolting as in capital R, as in French Revolution?

Adviser: Yes, sir.

Tyrant: Then kill them.

Adviser: We can’t.

Tyrant: I can kill anyone I want.

Adviser: Yes, sir. You’re the Executive. But it looks like a peaceful revolution.

Tyrant: Peace? What’s that? Oh, peace! That’s right. I forgot about the Nobel Peace Prize.

Adviser: Yes Master, it was that symbolic gesture you were given because you’re not quite white.

Tyrant: Watch it. I can flay you alive.

Adviser: But then who would be your jester?

Tyrant: Good point. So you say this is a peaceful revolution?

Adviser: Yes, sir.

Tyrant: Than what are you so hot and bothered about? Peace is powerless.

Adviser: Gandhi didn’t think so.

Tyrant: How many more nukes do we have than India?

Adviser: I’m glad your reputation of being a size queen sits on a firm . . .

Tyrant: What’s so revolutionary about this so called revolution?

Adviser: Well, it’s been going on for about 3 days. It’s world wide, it seems. And all it involves is the people singing and chanting to each other from their own homes.

Tyrant: A world wide peaceful revolution? Impossible.

Adviser: History seems to agree with you.

Tyrant: Wait, and what did you say? Singing and chanting? From their own homes!?

Adviser: Yes, sir.

Tyrant: What are they chanting.

Adviser: God is Good; Ignorance is Evil.

Tyrant: I’m not ignorant!

Adviser: Of course you’re not ignorant, Master. You’re a constitutional law professor.

Tyrant: The saps who voted for me, however . . .

Adviser: Good one, sir.

Tyrant: And some of them thought my predecessor was a moron.

Adviser: Yes, well, they voted him into office, too. They hoped you’d be different.

Tyrant: I don’t want to think about him. I’m the head honcho know. That’s all that matters.

Adviser: Quite a profound change, indeed.

Pillar of NaCl

A: What is the atomic number of sodium?

B: 11

A: What is the atomic number of chlorine?

B: 17

A: What do you get when you combine one atom of sodium and one atom of chlorine.

B: One molecule of table salt.

H 2 0 = Love

A: What is the atomic number of Hydrogen?

B: One.

A: What is the atomic number of Oxygen?

B: Eight.

A: What is a molecule of water composed of?

B: Two atoms of Hydrogen and one atom of Oxygen: H2O.

A: What is Christ?

B: Water.

Master and Slave

Socrates: What is a question?

Pupil: Yes it is.

Socrates: Cute. A question is a request from one person to another, or to a group of people, to illicit knowledge and information that the requester does not yet have.

Pupil: Has anyone ever told you you’re pedantic?

Socrates: I’ve been told I’m a pedagogue.

Pupil: What’s a pedagogue?

Socrates: Ask your mother when she picks you up after class.

Dichotomies

A: On the one hand, you despise anthropomorphism and heap scorn upon the masses who believe monkeys to be the sine qua non of creation.

B: That’s right.

A: And you hold most of religion to be fairy tales foisted upon the gullible to placate the ignorant and succor the fearful and to keep charlatans in positions of power.

B: Succinctly put.

A: And you believe what most call God to be a projection of the human psyche, a defense mechanism against an indifferent and callous universe.

B: On the one hand.

A: And on the other, you believe God to be a metaphor, a way to express —

B: or reify —

A: Our most noble impulses. You use the term “God” as a Buddhist uses a finger pointing at the moon.

B: I’m no Zen master.

A: Yet God is your koan.

B: Again, well put. I grant all of your observations and summations.

A: You are generous.

B: And you are kind.

A: But how can you square the circle? How can you hold, on the one hand, religion to be bogus and God as projection and defense mechanism —

B: In the one hand —

A: And in the other God as metaphor and ineffable expression of all that is noble and good within us?

B: Do I contradict myself?

A: You drape yourself in dichotomies.

B: I am huge. I contain multitudes.

A: And you employ literary references as some wear armor.

B: The pen is mightier than the sword.

A: And your tongue sharper than any blade.

B: Touché.

To the creator, all things come

A: You have no control over what you started.

B: None at all.

A: Do you know what that means?

B: It means that I am a creator.

Who’s Your Daddy?

A: Don’t you believe in democracy? Would you rather live in a totalitarian country?

B: I would rather live in a country whose citizens are capable of intelligent discourse. But I don’t believe any such country exists.

A: Perhaps. But haven’t you heard the quote that democracy might not be the best government, but it is better than any of the alternatives?

B: Winston Churchill. I believe the exact quote is “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.”

A: Thank you. Exactly. Democracy has flaws, of course. But it is the best that we have.

B: I prefer to look at politics in cynical and reductionist terms.

A: Why am I not surprised?

B: Because you know me too well. Bear with me a moment. Humans are primates. Primates are social hierarchical animals. Animals in social hierarchies usually defer to other animals in positions of power and influence. The most obvious example of this is the family. Children, who are young and ignorant and helpless, have no choice but to defer to their parents, who are the most powerful and influential beings in their lives.

A: Did your mother love you?

B: Cheap shot.

A: I take what I can get.

B: Get this: the president of the United States is often referred to as the most powerful man alive. Being the most powerful man alive, he exists at the pinnacle of a social hierarchy, and he has people — Secret Service agents — who are sworn to sacrifice their lives, if called upon to do so, in order to save his.

A: Power has its privileges.

B: Indeed it does. And we, as citizens, are also called upon to heed his words and to support him and the decisions that he makes.

A: We don’t have to support the decisions that he makes: we can disagree with him.

B: But beyond that, we can do nothing.

A: We can vote him out of office.

B: And so the cycle begins again. Let me put it in stark terms: in America, every four years, we are given the freedom to choose the alpha male. And after we make our choice the only thing we can do is watch what he does.

A: You make it sound like we are just passive participants in the political process.

B: Prove to me that we aren’t.

A: But don’t you hope for a change?

B: Hope is not an action and change is but a buzzword. And hoping for a thing does not make it so.

A: I hope that one day you can be happy.

B: So do I. But at times I do not believe it is possible for self-conscious primates to be happy. Maybe that’s why we created religion.

A: Which often takes the form of a political hierarchy.

B: Such as the Catholic Church.

A: Right. And the Pope?

B: The father of the church.

On Hunger

A: Were you raised by wolves? Where is your sense of human decency, your sense of compassion?

B: I suckled compassionately at my mother’s breast.

A: Only because you had yet to develop teeth.

B: Ouch.

A: I hope you feel the sting that I begin to feel as I watch your nihilism — which you used to wear only as a mask or cloak — seem to seep into your skin and into your blood and to taint all of your observations with hopelessness and bitter grief.

B: I didn’t design the universe. I merely comment on its manifestations.

A: Cowardice.

B: Is it cowardly to state the truth?

A: No it is not. But it is cowardly to throw up your hands and to say “It’s no use. Abandon hope. The future is preordained and we’re all doomed.”

B: But we are all doomed, when, in a few billion years the sun begins to expand . . .

A: Yes, yes, yes. Death is inevitable. But how you choose to spend your time while alive is not.

B: I disagree. I spend my life securing food and shelter, and seeking someone to embrace at night.

A: Now you sound less like a nihilist and more like a human being.

B: I’ve never claimed to be more than a human being. Or more than an animal. You claim that I can live my life doing whatever I want —

A: That’s not what I said.

B: Or, more accurately, that I can engage in activities of my own choosing.

A: More or less. What I actually meant is that you can choose your attitude. That you can live with a sense of hope or with a sense of despair.

B: But I cannot live without a sense of hunger.

A: Bite me.

B: Is that a figure of speech?

A: Are you into cannibalism?

B: I don’t know. Pass the salt.

Conundrum

Socrates: Why does the cosmos exist?

Jesus: Because God loves America.