•

they’re scared shitless, that’s all, just look at ’em, the way they look at me, like I was going to steal their mental crutches (accompanied by the chrome-steel baritone of that asshole there)

. . . did I more or less summarize what you were trying to say? (Okay, pipe up now, Willem!) . . .

. . . well sure, partly—I mean: some of it was exactly right . . .

and the other parts? (I wish they wouldn’t look so gleeful, waiting for him to crush me, nice friends I’ve got . . .)

. . . well now, on the other hand—you know, I’ve got nothing against God—I mean no fundamental objection (or: in principle—or what’s the best way to put it?)—I mean, I’m not particularly unbelieving . . .

but what? . . .

but nothing (why’d he say “but what”?), Jesus Christ too, right? it’s all okay with me—I just mean about the “agreement” part . . .

Yes? . . .

I mean, I admit that in a certain sense, Christian teachings—in their original form, of course—yes?—naturally those teachings represent in a certain sense an end point of social thought (why’re they squirming like I’d kicked them in the stomach? did I say anything against Karl Marx? or even Karl Nagel? just ’cause I’m drinking his turnip whiskey?)

. . . yes, I’m listening. . .

(the way that sounds: “I’m listening”! it’s like being interrogated by Roland Freisler)

. . . I just meant to say we all know what the church did was a load of bullshit (shit! that was a mistake! it just slipped out—talking like a grunt is definitely not in the right key for a serious discussion of central questions of political philosophy—and here comes his unrelenting baritone again: “Well, for the time being that’s not what’s at issue”—all that’s missing would have been for him to let it pass without comment! such a compelling thinker) . . . I only said that to formulate—I mean, just simply to express—yes?—that the idea that a new state in future should naturally be founded on original Christian principles—yes?—well, that in that case, of course I’m in agreement . . . (however—but then the whole shitty discussion will start all over again; let’s leave it at that)

. . . so, as I said, I agree (I’m about to beat it anyway)—

• • •

Once articulated, inventions, insights, and discoveries gain a reality that makes their obviousness unassailable and omnipresent, independent of their communication by the spoken or written word. Everywhere and simultaneously they are invented, comprehended, and discovered—

as if it wasn’t just a single person they would have occurred to but instead, from a particular moment on, were ripe for discovery, floating in the air we breathe, and could have occurred to anyone—would soon have occurred to everyone:

as if no one could avoid them reaching him as well—

• • •