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Man or Quail? ~ By Marvin Stern
D
uring the afternoon of Saturday, 11 February 2006, the Vice-President of the United States shot a man. Later, in the intensive-care ward of the hospital, the victim — mistaken for a quail — was ―alert and doing fine.‖ A witness in Texas observed: ―It knocked him silly. But he was fine. He was talking. His eyes were open. It didn't get in his eyes or anything like that.‖ This makes sense: the 78year-old was ―mostly injured,‖ after all, only ―on his right side.‖
Among the oldest challenges to thought and freedom is the effort of institutions of authority to direct, continuously, the eyes and ears of their audience to what “the authority” is saying — and nothing else. With each hour, it seems, we are brought up-to-date with the efforts of our government — the success especially — in keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists, particularly in Pakistan. For most Americans, accordingly, whatever is on the printed page or the airwaves is, instantly, the truth. Without a doubt, the voice and appearance of “authority” like this has been the most unbidden visitor in American life. The reason is clear: such authority is always accompanied, and most of all sustained, by ignorance. And the murders, earlier in the summer in Kansas and Washington DC, have once again highlighted the immediacy of this problem in the United States. Movies offer unforgettable portrayals — and longer views — of those who wish to create unshakeable and unquestionable “authority.” In The Shop on Main Street — a great movie from Czechoslovakia — a screen of black and white is the parade ground for crypto-Nazi gangs that seize towns and villages. And their first action is rigging up outdoor loudspeakers that are constantly presenting the “news.”
The voices, the words, are inescapable. Even when milking cows in a barn or a sitting in an outhouse, the echoes — the lies — are mixed into everything, everywhere. But this was only the beginning to a new direction in Western Civilization. Everywhere, today, there is not merely “talk radio,” there is also “talk education.” At the lowest as well as the highest rungs on the educational ladder in America, “talk” equals knowledge and truth. This can be observed whether it is a weekly “discussion” section led by a graduate student in an Ivy League course — or in the appointment of “talkers” to teach courses in the humanities and social sciences at colleges and universities across the country. This easy route for those in authority — because it facilitates lying — is smoothed and polished by a gritty substance in language and the human mind as well: the apparent fine line of material that stands between intellectual ferment and authority-sponsored falsehoods. But even further, this struggle has roots deep within pure thought and controversy. And, on occasion, the final resolution can literally shake the heavens. After all, an abiding idea in British culture of the