The Tangled Web

At the Citadel of the Wyverns yesterday, the congregation of the faithful was summoned to the Auditorium (for there is now no Chapel at the Citadel, but only a place for listening to the Inquisition). The sorrowful knight, heir to those who had gone before, sat listening. And when he had listened, he could control himself no more, and his mind went out in search of the Wolff...

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Wolff, no longer Sir Wolff, sits sipping his atrament with old friends. It is the season of prevarication again, and deceit like a cloud of flies hovers over the Citadel. He speaks.

I have heard from the sorrowful, and though the Grand Inquisitor is not in residence, it is said that his consortium makes words as from his mouth. They have told the faithful to speak the truth of the Citadel, but only the truth that suits the Lords of the Magistratum.

In particular, one of them has said most plainly, "I am confident that you will respond in the way we want you to," and also, "The lenses and prisms that spy upon you are for your safety, and not because we wish to scry upon your deeds through sorcery," and also, "We do not want you to lie for the Citadel."

His friends stir. One points out that this particular one-who-speaks-for-the-Magistratum is adept at misdirection and manipulation. Another points out that she is also adept at threatening without actually saying so. Wolff laughs. He remembers the taint. He knows what is in his book. He replies.

I remember speaking the truth with intent to misdirect, on the orders of the Grand Inquisitor himself. He said to me, "Sir Wolff, tell of the glories of the Citadel, but do not bring down wrath, nor lead us into difficulty, by telling the kind of truth that does not bring us reward. Do not search too deeply, nor research again, for life can be very short, and you must live well."

This is what the Faithful are told in the Auditorium-that-is-not-quite-a-Chapel. And some have learnt that loyalty to the Brotherhood is only loyalty to the Citadel, that loyalty is the clever silence and the beautified truth. For the Grand Inquisitor and his High Lords of the Magistratum seek to hold truth by power, knowing that they have not the excellence of the unvarnished truth.

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And talk moved on to other things, such as how come the Gryphons had convened a conference on the Science of Sport, while the Grand Inquisitor had six years past decided to do no such thing at all.

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Note: The fictional adventures of Sir Wolff do provide much that is of interest. You can find them linked here. Just ignore the one about earwax. That was an accident.

The One-Bookie Leader (Part III): Right Makes Might

To wrap up this entertaining diversion on the Monobibliarch (the OBL of legend, or One-Track Cogitator), we must take a look at the kind of sloganeering or one-sentence-reductionism that has been indulged in by such creatures. It is educational, sometimes entertaining, but always a warning for us to heed...

In the beginning was "Arbeit macht frei", apparently related to the mounting of striking eagle statues to keep watch over prisoners the inhabitants of the gulag workplace (although it must be said that hundreds will attest that the Leader in question used the term 'concentration camp' proudly, frequently and with brio). This slogan, well... least said, soonest mended. I refer you to a link that may be of use.

This was not the only familiar slogan to those of us who wondered what was going on in the once-hallowed corridors of the academic gulag workplace. Occasionally, we thought we heard "Jedem das Seine" instead. Or maybe it was "Recht macht Macht" or something like that. Oddly enough, the name that came to mind for most of us was Iosif Vissarionovich, which seemed quite counter-intuitive.

The problem is of course that OBLs in general have a rather unfortunate way with words. Not having any of their own, they tend to pluck lines out of context and 'reveal' them to the populace as veins of gold and banners of light. In fact, he of the 'concentration camp' was prone to get upset when corrected at all, which made some of his utterances rather painful to most civilised people.

The problem is a holistic one in a certain sense. Given a slogan or vision, OBLs in general tend to make everything line up to suit them, even if inappropriate. To 'soar on wings like eagles' becomes to 'strike like an eagle' and eventually degenerates into apocryphal tales and symbolic hodgepodges about eagles. Eventually, without intending it, the OBL may think of himself as an OBerstLeutnant and then the commander of some holocaustic education establishment.

It is sad. But he has the right, and hence the might. And so we have to let it go on. The most important thing is to not become like that ourselves.

Macbeth

This was the man whom Shakespeare recreated as a villain. But what if he actually had been a hero, a wise and farsighted king who kept his fractious demesne from fracturing? Then it is not beyond belief that his southern neighbours, envious of his firm and clever rule, should have left a legacy of subtle propaganda that would forevermore taint him 'villain'.

Sometimes, it is hard ploughing through the legacies and counter-legacies, as each successor attempts to make himself look better than the one before him. It might be worse: you could be the one doing the rewrite, under pain of death. It might be better: you could end up writing the truth for all to see.