Me: I took a bus across the country a few years back and shared the last leg of my journey with a High School senior - no less a personage than the class president. She was a sweet little thing, who didn't mind my endless lecturing about the school system and how it tends to teach conformity more than anything else. While a certain level of conformity is necessary to hold society together, I believe that it is getting out of hand in the early twenty-first century. Tonight I've invited three guests to discuss this threat. The first one is a High School principal. Would you please welcome Mister Doug Enis!
(Applause. Enter Enis - same 'e' sound for both words.)
Me: Mister Enis, if you were to split it into percentages, how much of what children receive in the classroom today is education and how much is simply social conditioning?
Enis: Well, we do love our children, David-
Me: I know. I'm just trying to help.
Enis: -and we try to take a balanced approach to their upbringing.
Me: So fifty/fifty?
Enis: I suppose it depends on the students. If they reject their studies, that would lessen the educational side of your figure.
Me: And could they make up for the deficiency from the social conditioning side of it?
Enis: How do you mean?
Me: Oh, I don't know, being extra well behaved, showing extra respect to the teacher...
Enis: You mean sucking up?
Me: Let me tell you, I broke my back to learn the JavaScript programming language in college. I went out and bought the textbook and struggled and made myself understand it. But the teacher gave a higher mark to another student simply because of my position on the conflict between Netscape and Internet Explorer at the time. The other student, an exceptionally well behaved and affable fellow, told me with pride that he forgot every lesson by the course's end, whereas I still know how to write my own programs.
Enis: That's too bad. But teachers are people like everyone else. Maybe you should have kept your opinion to yourself.
Me: Maybe I shouldn't have had an opinion at all. I just don't see how you can expect it of a thinking student.
Enis: Isn't it the same on any job? Don't the promotions generally go to the employees with the best personal relationship with their superiors?
Me: Isn't it wrong? Why do we work around a broken system instead of fixing it?
Enis: There's a point where we must simply face the reality.
Me: You mean the slavery. (pause) I guess I'm a freak. If I were the boss, I would want my best worker to get the promotion, even if I disliked the person.
Enis: You are a freak, David. I've had a look at your record and-
Me: Very good of you to be with us today! Principal Doug Enis! (Applause.)
*********************************************
Commercial: Primetime Polly
(A schoolyard.)
Girl 1: Did Susan break up with Brad?
Girl 2: She caught him in bed with Theresa!
Girl 1: No wonder.
Girl 3: (breaking in) Hi, girls! What's up?
Girl 1: Did you see Townhouse last night?
Girl 3: Uh - sure!
Girl 1: You did? Why did Susan break up with Brad?
Girl 3: Uh - because he forgot her birthday?
Girls 1 & 2: (derisive laughter) Nice try, geek!
(Girl 3 turns away with her head down in disgrace.)
Girl 1: She looks like Lucy when she got her eviction notice!
Announcer: Are you feeling left out from not watching enough television? Primetime Polly can help!
(Girl 3 places mechanical bird in front of TV set, turns set on, and goes off camera.)
Announcer: Just perch Polly in front of your television and feel free to do something challenging and stimulating.
(The schoolyard. Girl 3 has Polly on her shoulder. She approaches girls 1 and 2 with a smile of confidence.)
Announcer: Then keep Polly on your shoulder to keep you one step ahead of the in crowd.
Girl 3: Hi, girls!
Girl 1: What did Rachel do to her hair last night?
Girl 3: (leaning head in close to Polly) Dyed it purple.
Girl 1: Right!
Girl 3: Great! Can we be friends now?
Girl 1: I don't know! As long as you're wearing that parrot, why don't you make friends with Long John Silver?
Girls 1 & 2: (derisive laughter)
Announcer: Primetime Polly. She's the only friend you need.
*********************************************
Me: She's the editor of Grapefruit, an online magazine with tremendous influence on the music and fashion industries, Miss Gabby Hayseed!
(Applause. Enter Hayseed. I rise to greet her and we take our seats.)
Hayseed: You're tall!
Me: Who me? I'm six-foot-one. Average height for a tall man.
Hayseed: I heard you were short!
Me: I heard that one, myself. We're in trouble when people believe gossip over the evidence of their own eyes.
Hayseed: Your music's groovy!
Me: Is that fashionable again? I wouldn't know. I just try to be myself. And it's more of a struggle than it should be because no one else seems to be doing it.
Hayseed: Plus you can draw portraits! That's so cool!
Me: People wiped their feet on my drawings when I was unpopular - at the same time as they flocked to a guy who draws two-dimensional rocket ships.
Hayseed: Your eyes are innocent.
Me: Miss Hayseed, I'm glad you like me, but I need you to answer a question now.
Hayseed: Go for it!
Me: Why did your magazine tell everyone I was a half-witted, untalented, evil dwarf with a fetish for preteen girls?
Hayseed: (after a pause) That was just a misunderstanding.
Me: It almost got me killed.
Hayseed: (after a pause) You're tough!
Me: All right, I can see where this is going. Gabby Hayseed, everyone! (As the audience claps, I turn to Hayseed and ask in a discreet tone:) Wanna get together after the show?
Hayseed: You're funny!
Me: That means 'yes', right?
(Applause. Commercial.)
Me: Our final guest has been helping unpopular politicians to win elections for over twenty years. Please welcome public relations expert, Mister Kevin Warmtongue!
(Applause. Enter Warmtongue.)
Me: That's an unusual name you have there.
Warmtongue: It used to be Wormtongue, but I changed it.
Me: Good for you. Well, I know you P.R. people play an important role, but isn't all this manipulation of the public mind making a mockery of the democratic process?
Warmtongue: We don't forbid people to think for themselves.
Me: But you know that they work hard, are pressed for time, and would rather have someone else do the thinking for them.
Warmtongue: Actually, our approach tends to bypass the conscious, rational process altogether. We aim for people's hearts. For instance, if we know that hunting is popular in a state with swing voters, we dress our man in a hunting jacket. Works every time.
Me: (grimacing) Geez! What a farce!
Warmtongue: What do you mean?
Me: You don't think it's a little dishonest? Even the gentlest S.P.C.A. volunteer looks like a hunter in a hunting jacket.
Warmtongue: Our aims are ultimately benevolent. We have faith in our client.
Me: Yeah, I know. Because he pays you gobs of cash. This has been going on for way too long. Who put Adolf Hitler on the cover of Time and called him the 'Man of the Year'? I'll tell you who. The same ones that later made propaganda cartoons depicting him as a short man. He wasn't short. He was five-foot-eleven.
Warmtongue: Get outta here!
Me: He was! And I got into an argument with a former friend over it and he never spoke to me again. He thought I was sticking up for the bastard. I was only sticking up for the facts. Hitler was a mass-murdering son of a bitch. His height was irrelevant. You kind of people think you are doing good by lying about an evildoer's height. But when you lie, that makes you the evildoer. God gave Hitler those five feet and eleven inches. Who do you think you are, taking them away from him?
Warmtongue: I see your point, but these techniques have proven to be the most effective way to reach a target group. If we don't use them, someone else will.
Me: Nuclear missiles are the most effective way to destroy a target, but we seem to know better than to use them. At any rate, thank you for being here tonight. Mister Kevin Warmtongue!
(Applause. Commercial.)
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