D EAR ... hmm, who is left? The

MPs are gone, returned to their

homes for the summer; my task of writing to

them is done. So what now? There is no one

to write to. - These were my thoughts as I

sat down to begin a new letter, but while I

pondered this question a voice broke into my

consciousness.

‘Come now,' it said, ‘what really has changed?

You have been writing to absent readers all

along! Have you not been mailing out hundreds

of broadsheets, printed at your own expense,

that your readers would not open? That is

what you have been told, by those who know

the habits of MPs much better than you do.

So what is different now? You have written

to readers who would not read you: why stop?

Write more, continue! Readers who will not

read you, my good man, are everywhere!

‘Do you not see that it is in fact your duty to

put forth what the citizens of a free country

will refuse to read. If you do not write it,

will you not thus force them not to read it?

(Who has any freedom to read what has not

been written?) Would you force them, Sir, by

refusing to write? No, for the sake of Freedom

you must continue to write what every free

citizen who comes across you will then have

the blessed liberty to ignore! Let Freedom

ring , Sir!' - Therefore, ...

D EAR w homev er , DEAR

phantom reader , MY

DEAR canadian : it is my pleasure to write

to you because you are there - faithful and

constant!

When the MPs to whom I had been writing

were gone, I was glad - yes, glad - thrilled

to get away from the foul issue , for it

had tired me. But my respite from it was

brief, much too brief, for a solicitous friend

soon enjoined me to pay attention to the

Internet. Oh the Internet. Woe, woe, I cry:

what creation is this, that we have chained

ourselves to it; what treacherous, wobbling

stage have we constructed, on which to strut

and prance about and flatten our faces? (But

enough of that.) My friend had directed me

to an interesting corner of this virtual realm

in which a daily Debate was underway on

Motion 312: the very subject of my interest in

these past months.

However, I wisely stop myself here. ‘Daily

Debate '? I dare not use the word ‘Debate '

at all, for one of the lessons the Internet

has lately confirmed is that we do not

know w hat constitutes debate . No,

indeed we do not. And a serious matter it

is, too. If Debate broke into our house and

ate our dinner, we would not know what was

chewing our noodles. If we had to find Debate

in a crowd, because its house was burning,

we would mistake a thousand other things

for Debate before we turned to anything that

actually is one.

Yes, this conclusion - to which I have at

last been led by the wild antics of ‘Debaters'

- was recently confirmed in me by the

exchange I witnessed at close quarters on the

Internet. It has led me to make the following

pronouncement: whereby I would see ...

t h e p u b l i c c h a r g e d w i t h l am e n t a b l e

i g n o r an c e ab o u t d e b a t e

Yes, there you have it: consider

yourself so charged. D o You know

what Debate involves, and (very much to

the point) what it excludes? Are You among

the Enlightened who might lead us in

Debate (for you know what it is) or are you

one of the many proclaiming we ‘have had

a Debate', when all that you know is that

‘we have argued'. Is Debate simply arguing?

‘Oh, here we go,' you will perhaps say, with

that sour look on your face, ‘another abstract

disquisition on some lofty Idea!' But I am

charging you with not knowing what you are

talking about:

it is you who

are using the

word. Look sour

about that.

Believe me, it is

worth your time,

to see if you

have a grade-

school grasp of

this word you use,

this primary in-

s t r umen t o f

Democracy. Do

you know that

at least: that

Debate is an instrument of Democracy, a chief

tool and protection of civ ilization?

What is to be said for a Citizenry that cannot

recognize it, and so does not know when its

fences and protections have rotted & collapsed?

t h e VEHICLE o f d e b a t e

What is debate? If I call it a

v ehicle , I suggest that it is:

a a means of conv eyance ,

b by which we might get somew here .

Imagine a group of people who, aware that

v ehicles have been invented, propose

to manufacture such vehicles, so that we

might convey ourselves about in them more

cheaply, shall we say. But these Deceitful

Manufacturers produce vehicles that, as we

who purchase them soon discover, do not

work. I would venture to say there is a Fool

in this scenario somewhere, the chief signal

of raging folly being that the vehicles in

question lack such components as wheels and

drive shafts! But who, pray, is the Fool: these

Charlatan Manufacturers, or the Buyers who

have purchased their goods?

The Makers seem rather canny (despicable,

yes, but not foolish), for so finely gauging

the gullibility of the Buyers. It is the Buyers

whom we shall have to charge with a rather

Stupendous Ignorance, both for lacking the

wits to notice that these vehicles have no

wheels , and for lacking the sense to conclude

that what has no wheels will not drive , and

that what will not drive cannot be a car .

And that is our situation exactly, with regard

to Debate . In my next letter, I will show you

this deficiency in examples - but I can show it

to you right now, in yourself, for the features

I shall now insist define a Debate you will

promptly dismiss as not features of Debate at

all. And so the blindness with which I charge

the public can be found quite near to home.

We do not know the defining features

of Debate : the very features that are as

essential to its being as wheels are to a car.

And, indeed, we are worse off, and even more

foolish, than the Junk-Bucket buyers, for we

get into the Debate and sit wheel-less in

our Driveways, pumping toxins out our tail-

pipes and making a loud sound, never noticing

that we are going now here .

We do not notice that our purpose in debate

is not being served - whereas the car-buyers

knew at once that their Crap-Cans did not move

and that their purposes of transport were foiled!

What fools are we, to ‘have Debates' that are

not Debates?! We hear a thing labelled Debate

and glibly parrot this talk - saying that we Are

glad to Engage in Debate and Will Debate any-

one, or claiming that we are Participating in

Debate (“This has been debated as long as man has

existed"), or Have Had One (this is “a debate that

has already taken place") - and so prove ourselves to

know nothing whatsoever about this subject:

for here we sit in our ‘Debate' vehicles,

stock-still and wheel-less in our driveways,

making a blustering noise.

If we engage in a Debate and go now here , yet

remain convinced that Debate is being had, we

prove ourselves to be school-children on this

topic, for any True Debate is a vehicle that

will conduct us , like a car, to a Destination .

t h e DESTINATIONo f d e b a t e

T hat destination may not be precisely

where we wish to go, but it will be

somewhere, and it will be forward.

Consign what I am about to say to the rank of

mere opinion , if you must (noting carefully,

however, that the one who calls it an opinion

that ‘Every car has wheels' casts doubt only

upon his own knowledge of cars), but I tell

you that The purpose of a Debate is:

to conduct all of those who are conducting

the debate to a Conclusion ...

that we, conducting the debate, w ill accept .

‘A Conclusion? In the Debate about abortion?!

What nonsense!' “That debate has always been open and

will never close." But which is it: is Debate that

which never closes, or that which does close?

“This is a debate we had back in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. It’s

been settled for decades." (Two quotations from the

same person.) But really, can both things be Debate?

The very reason that we speak of a Debate

being had , and heave great sighs of relief

over blessed closure in a Debate (when we

have reached such closure), is that we have

not completely forgotten the true character

and purpose of a Debate.

Allow me to demonstrate that character and

purpose in a brief and amusing play .

No.

7 19 JULY

2012}}

The DISSEN TING FU TILITARIAN {{

L ET T E R S TO . . . c a n a d i a n s ? F R OM A C I T I Z E N O N T H E S U B J E CT O F T H E P R O P O S E D I N V E ST I G AT I O N I N TO O U R H U M A N I T Y

E n g a g e i n d e b a t e : w e r a c e t o t h e c a u s e ! T h e r e ’ s s c a n t h o p e f o r t h e m , b u t f o r u s t h e r e ’ s a p p l a u s e !

B

CITIZENS' QUIET (SPEECHLESS)

REACTION TO THE

CHARGE OF IGNORANCE

||||||||||||||||||

H A D R I A N D H A RM A

FIN DS HIS WAY

||||||||||||||||||

Scene i. The office of Mr. Cracktop, MP

Our hero, Hadrian Dharma, fearless advocate

of the Public Welfare, gesturing boldly: No, Sir,

I do not accept what you say. I am in Com-

plete Disagreement ! You, Sir, my elected

Representative, are entirely In the Wrong !

Mr. Cracktop: What I say, you would find very

easy to accept if only you would think it through.

Hadrian: Ha! I know very well what you have

in mind: that I follow your thinking and be

led from my purpose. But no: it is not my

purpose that should be abandoned but yours,

as I am arguing for the Public Welfare, while you

stand up for bold inaction and politics as usual!

Cracktop: But Hadrian, what you have

proposed will do nothing for the Public.

Hadrian: What nonsense, Sir! I was robbed

at gunpoint and I am proposing that you

draft a Bill to ban bullets from our land

and make the public safe from such assaults!

Protect our citizens from shootings!

Cracktop: And how would such a Law have

made you saferÉÉÉ?

Hadrian: If I had known there were no

bullets in that gun, because they were utterly

banned , I would have pounced on my attacker

and given him a beating.

Cracktop: But you would not know that.

That man was a Criminal, wouldn't you agree?

Hadrian: What nonsense are you talking? I

refuse to engage with a man who disdains

public safety. You make no point worth answering.

Cracktop: You say that I make no point worth

answering, but answer it and let us see.

Hadrian: No, Sir, I shall not answer. You

are my opponent , and so you wish me to

follow the logic of my opponent , which is

most certainly opposed to me - and thus

designed to dissuade me from my plan to

protect the Public. No! Good evening, Sir: we

have Debated enough! (He exits.)

Cracktop: Gracious me, to my eyes it seems

that we have not Debated at all. But how can

I convince my friend, who now believes I am

against both him and his cause?

Scene ii.

Night. A dark road & beside it a large bush

Up the road comes Hadrian, but as he nears

the bush a masked figure leaps out from

behind it and confronts him:

Masked Figure: Hands up!

Hadrian: Oh, not again!

Figure: Your money or your life.

Hadrian: But I can't see you: it is too dark:

why should I not just run? How do I know

you are any threat to me at all? Maybe you are

a midget with a stick.

Figure: Take your chances, Sir: run if you

wish, but I have a bomb and I will throw it.

Hadrian: You have a what?

Figure: A jar of Greek Fire: and if I throw it,

it will explode, and spray you with flaming

pitch, which you won't get off you: and so you

will burn to cinders in minutes.

Hadrian: I've never heard of this!

Figure: What do you mean? It's a lethal

Banned Substance! Don't you know your own Laws?

Hadrian: Of course I do, but I have never

heard of your ... Greek Jar.

Figure: Darn! Well, no matter, I am quite

prepared for this: come closer while I light

a lamp - and hold this. (The Masked Figure

passes something to Hadrian)

Hadrian:

What is it?

Figure: The

Greek Fire.

H a d r i a n :

I said I didn't

believe in it.

Figure: I know,

I know. (Lights

the lamp) But

do you see

this book? Read

here.

H a d r i a n :

Hmm ... oh! I had no idea. Yes, this is indeed

our Law book: Greek Fire is banned.

Figure: (Reaching into his coat) And I have

a scientific paper here on Greek Fire, if you

care to read ...

Hadrian: No, no: I trust that it is bad if the

Law bans it!

Figure: So you get the picture now, I venture.

Let's start again. I am a Criminal - correct?

Hadrian: Indeed you are, you Thief!

Figure: And Criminals break Laws - quite as

I am demonstrating, since I am now breaking

the Laws against theft.

Hadrian: You filthy Thief!

Figure: Are any other Laws being broken?

Hadrian: What do you mean?

Figure: You are holding a Banned Substance.

Hadrian: Oh, forgive me, here. (Returns the

jar) You are the Criminal; you hold it.

Figure: Thank you. The Criminal, as you

acknowledge, is all too willing to hold the

Banned Substance: and even to acquire what

has been Banned: because breaking Laws is

the Criminal habit. These Statutes (thrusting

the Lawbook upon Hadrian) are respected by

you, not me.

Hadrian: You know, it's odd that you carry a ...

Figure: Do you mind? I am making a point.

Look hard at this jar: are you ready to say,

as you stare at it, that because the contents

of this jar have been banned that there is

no danger to you in it? - I am asking you,

notice, about what you believe. is that what

you believe? That you are safe? Would you

like to pounce on me, as I brandish it, and

give me a beating?

(The masked Figure now

pulls out a pistol, points it at

Hadrian's face, and continues)

I am prepared to shoot you,

Sir - which is most assuredly

illegal. As I point this gun at

your nose, would you kindly

stare into the barrel and

remind yourself that Bullets

have been banned . At least,

imagine that they have! Imagine that a Good

and Fine Citizen has come to your aid in

advance of this crime, and made sure that

there is a Law there, in that Lawbook you

clutch, to assure you that there is no bullet in

this law-abiding gun.

Hadrian: But, just a minute ... (Hadrian

lunges forward and pulls the mask away - to

reveal ... )

Cracktop: My dear friend! Do you now

conclude, with me, that a Law banning

bullets will do nothing to protect the public

against those embarked on using a gun to

break the law?

op

I omit the last speech in our drama - the play's

conclusion - which I allow you to complete

in your own mind, for I suppose we might

wonder whether Hadrian Dharma is man

enough to be corrected. If he finds his way,

just what Way does he choose? The concluding

lines of the play will depend rather greatly,

don't you think, on the character that Hadrian

possesses, and I feel certain you can imagine

more than one denouement.

Yet I am sure that you agree: we know what the

conclusion ought to be! The character that he

ought to have would lead him to admit the

Truth , which is that - having participated in

the argument, and considered the facts (the

gun barrel, the reality) - he truly does not

believe that the gun of a criminal must be

empty, if a Law has been passed to ban bullets.

He sees that the danger remains; he sees what

Mr. Cracktop saw earlier: for they have now

both, together, reached one and the same

Conclusion . And their Debate is concluded .

the HOPE conta ined in debate

Yes, Debate does indeed deliver

Closure , Conclusiv eness - when

we have together been led by it to ack now l -

edge some True Thing, in company with our

fellow man, though we were previously unable

to do so. When we admit, together, the truth

of a thing, we have arrived at a conclusion .

And any properly conducted Debate has

a Conclusion . Do you believe this?

The Conclusion of any true Debate is like a

Waterfall , for all who have been conveyed

to it can behold that it stands there before

them. In common, we perceive it - and indeed

enjoy the commonality of the spectacle that

we have contrived, out of fellow feeling, to

give to ourselves (not to You or to Me alone

but to You in company with Me): for we have

together been conducted to it, by our Debate .

By Debate , we did what was needed to reach

this Waterfall: we listened, we answered

truly, we participated in the discussion - and

it is not your will or my purpose but the

discussion itself that has led us to this

Waterfall, to this spectacle, that we might

behold and enjoy it in common!

This Waterfall, this Conclusion, this Shared

Spectacle in which All Who Are Present

Believe (for we have all been conducted here

by our Debate) is the fruit of our labours -

the fruit of Debate.

Do you know (or not know) that what Debate

involves, as its first and most primary

precondition, is hope that it could

take us - this clamorous lot w ho

began debating in disagreement - to a

conclusion that w e now acknow ledge

together?

Who among us believes that? ‘Debate and

Hope? Sheer Lunacy.' But then what is your

so-called Debate for? And who wants it?

I am, etc.

1 1 D i s s e nt i n g f ut i l ita r i a n . b lo g s p ot.ca