Title: Yawning Heights by Aleksander Zinoviev, with Commentary by ✨💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨and Zelda Zinovieva

Special note: the title and commentary are in black terminal boxes, such as this one, whereas the actual text we're examining are in an off white color intended to resemble the pages of a book. :)

Part 1, I

STACMLFTC

All our scientists claim, and many foreign scientists accept, that the inhabitants of Ibansk are a whole head taller than everybody else, with the exception of those who have followed their exam- ple. They are taller, not by reason of any reactionary biological superiority (from that point of view they are identical to everyone else), but because of the progressive historic condi- tions in which they live and the correctness of the theory for which they have been the guinea pigs; and thanks too to the wisdom of the leadership which has guided them so brilliantly. For this reason the people of Ibansk do not live in the old- fashioned and commonplace sense of the word as it is applied to other people in other places. The Ibanskians do not live, but carry out epoch-making experiments. They carry out these experiments even when they know nothing about them and take no part in them, and even when the experiments are not taking place at all. This book is devoted to the examination of one such experiment.

The experiment under consideration is called STACMLFTC, from the initial letters of the names of its principal participants. The name was composed by Colleague and was first used in the scientific literature by Thinker, who took this opportunity to publish a series of articles on another and more compelling theme. The articles were written on a high dialectical level, with the result that no-one read them, but everyone applauded them. After this, the term STACMLFTC became generally accepted and no longer used.

The experiment was dreamt up by the Institute for the Prophylaxis of Stupid Intentions, and carried out under the supervision of the Brainwashing Laboratory, written up in the Fundamental Journal and was supported by an initiative from below. The experiment was approved by the Leader, his Deputies, his Assistants and by everybody else-except for a

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few holding mistaken opinions. The aim of the experiment was to detect those who did not approve of its being carried out and to take appropriate steps.

Methodological principles

Two groups of people took part in the experiment; the experi menter group and the guinea-pig group. These groups were composed of one and the same people. The guinea-pigs knew that they were guinea-pigs. The experimenters knew that the guinea-pigs knew this. The guinea-pigs knew that the experimenters knew that they knew. And so on. Moreover, the experimenter group and the guinea-pig group were autonom- ous and had no influence on one another. There were no informational links between them, and as a result complete mutual understanding was achieved. The guinea-pigs were guided by the following principles: (1) well, what can you do about it? (2) what would change if...? (3) the hell with it! Colleague proved that from these basic principles there logi cally followed a string of derivative principles: (4) whatever you do there's no avoiding it; (5) there's got to be a limit; (6) why don't they just fuck off? The experimenters, on the other hand, were guided by the following principles: (1) whatever happens they won't get anywhere; (2) all will be revealed; (3) it'll all sort itself out. The aforementioned Colleague extrapolated from these bases the derivative principle (4) they will all plead guilty to everything.

The question as to whether or not this system proves the principle 'they will think up everything for themselves' has so far remained unresolved. But that in principle is not of princi- pal concern, since everything thinks itself up, as there is nothing to be invented, since everything already exists. Thanks to the principles which have been set out there was an increase in the flow of useless information and a reduction in man-hours. The experiment became the reverse of autonomous and, like every well thought out and logically conducted experiment, it ended in nothing. The achievements of Science and Technol- ogy had their parts to play in the experiment. In particular, Instructor used a synchrophasocyclobetraton laser beam to sweep the area of Schizophrenic's lavatory and to register his intention of writing a quasi-scientific sociological thesis, an idea

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which came into his mind at the very moment when, after severe constipation, he achieved the desired result and submit- ted the existing structure to severe criticism. This outstanding discovery was completely passed over in the Journal, and so we have no need to dwell on it here.

Time and place

After historic experiments the village of Ibansk was trans- formed. The former school building was redesignated The Associate Department of the Institute. The lavatory was rebuilt and clad in steel and glass. Now, from an observation platform, the tourists who flow into Ibansk in a never-ending stream can convince themselves with their own eyes that the false rumours that have reached them are the purest slander. A new Leader was appointed, and the old one was hidden somewhere because he was no longer of use. The new one was just as old as the old one, but no less progressive and erudite. Next door to the lavatory was built a new hotel in which the Laboratory was housed. So the tourists should have something to look at during the time they had free from visits to model factories, around the hotel ten new picturesque churches of the 10th century and earlier were built. Their walls were adorned with ancient fres- coes by Artist himself, who painted a portrait of the Leader in the foreground. He was awarded prizes, decorations and titles for his work. Artist depicted the industrious heroism and the military prowess of our freedom-loving ancestors, and out- standing cult figures of that far-off but not wholly forgotten age. In the main fresco Artist painted the Leader and his Deputies, who for this were awarded prizes, while the Leader himself got two: one for the one thing, the other for the other. As a result food prices were lowered, which meant that they merely doubled, instead of rising by five per cent as they did outside Ibansk. The Ibanuchka River was dammed. It over- flowed, flooded a potato field (the former pride of the Iban- skians) and swelled into a lake (the present pride of the Ibanskians). And for this all the inhabitants, with one or two exceptions, were decorated. The Leader made a long speech about it in which he analysed everything and outlined every- thing. In conclusion he said with confidence: 'Just you wait and see-we've hardly started.' The speech was prepared by

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Claimant with a large group of helpers. This fact was kept somewhat secret, in the sense that everyone knew about it except the Leader, who was decorated for it and was then given a further decoration because he had been decorated.

On the far bank of the river there was a new development of apartment blocks all identical outside, but indistinguishable inside. Chatterer, who by chance had obtained a self-contained unself-contained room in an apartment in this area, used to say that everything there was so much alike that he was never wholly confident that he was in his home or that in fact he was himself and not somebody else. Member took him up on this and argued that this was a sign of progress, challenged only by madmen and enemies, since variety inevitably produces inequality. Just you wait,' he said, 'when they've built the food stores and other cultural and educational establishments, you'll like it so much that wild horses won't drag you away."

In the centre of the new development there was a vacant lot which remained vacant for a long time. Initially the intention was to build a Pantheon there, then that was changed to the idea of an artificial lake stocked with pressed caviare. In the end they built a Bar-known as the Milk Bar. The Bar became enorm- ously popular. There was always a great crowd around it whether the Bar was selling beer (which rarely happened) or not (which also rarely happened). People brought their own drinks with them. They sat around in groups on barrels, boxes and rubbish heaps. Groups formed for greater or shorter intervals. Some kept going for months and even years. Fairly recently one of them celebrated its 50th anniversary. To mark this occasion, all the customers were given decorations, while the Leader himself got two: one of them for not taking part, the other for taking part. A long-standing group seldom assembled its full complement. Normally two or three or four members of the group would meet in various combinations. But the meeting place of the group always remained the same.

The beginning

Once, Colleague, who had set himself the task of exposing and eliminating obstacles, turned up at the Bar. Although he had a complete right to jump any queue to get everything that there was to be had and even what was not to be had, to the surprise of

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the assembled company he took his place in a long queue and listened. The people who were talking had every appearance of being intellectuals, but for some reason or other, they addres- sed each other formally and did not use unprintable (in the old sense) words when they were talking about an unprintable (in the new sense) subject. Member said that it was senseless to deny the existence of queues, food shortages, fiddling, and boorishness. They were all facts. But they were also nothing more than the small change of life which did not derive from the essence of our 'Ism'. When the 'Ism' came to its full flower, they would no longer exist. Indeed, had not the 'Ism' been created by our best people to ensure that nothing like that could exist? 'You're right,' said Chatterer. But the 'Ism' means more than ceremonial meetings and processions. It is a specific form of organisation and production. Everything else is just talking points for blind deaf-mute idiots. Colleague said that he agreed with both of them, and produced the familiar saying that the full 'Ism' could be built in one town but it would be better to live in another. Member said that in his day you didn't exactly get a pat on the head for telling stories like that. Colleague told Member that it wasn't his day now, but ours. Chatterer said that he could see no difference in principle.

They found a place to drink at the edge of the vacant lot in a cosy garbage pit. Member delivered a diatribe and began to tidy up. Colleague rolled a barrel over from the Bar after he'd chatted-up the sales girl and made a date with her. Chatterer nicked a crate from someone. Careerist said that it was his crate and he'd only left it to get a fifth glass of beer, but Colleague just laughed at him and so he joined the group. Member took a hip flask from his pocket. Chatterer dashed a tear from his eye and said that he had never lost his faith in man. After the third round they reached that state of euphoria which makes men prepared to risk the hazards of the drunk-tank. Chatterer poured out all the criticisms he felt about his work. 'Your complaints are childish,' Colleague replied. "You say you've got ten parasites, five trouble-makers, three informers and two paranoiacs. I think you're bloody lucky. There are two hundred people in my department. Two of them work half-way decently-one from stupidity, the other from habit. For the rest-well, great parasites have little parasites upon their backs

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💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨
— 26/05/2023 23:50 @Kitty Zelda (Joy) what does it mean that the leader was given a decoration for taking part, and another for not taking part? (page 16)

Kitty Zelda (Joy) — 26/05/2023 23:52 I don't know, but I assume it's a reference to Brezhnev and his obsession with medals and the fact that he gave himself medals for features and things he didn't partake in, like the Order of Victory This would make sense, because Yawning Heights and the other books that got him expelled against his will from the USSR was primarily attacking the Brezhnev Era

✨💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨
— 26/05/2023 23:53 That makes sense, what's the Ism on page 17 referring to?

Kitty Zelda (Joy) — 26/05/2023 23:55 I guess it's referring to the ideology of Ibansk He didn't name it explicitly I've read

✨💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨
— 26/05/2023 23:56 Ahhh Thanks! I was going to aim for 10 pages a night, but it's a bit hard to understand so I'll go slower Maybe I'll read more later tonight

Kitty Zelda (Joy) — 26/05/2023 23:57 I will try helping where I can help I've not read the book yet but I know alot about the man after all, and read about the book

✨💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨
— 26/05/2023 23:59 Why does it start on page 13? Is it because it was discovered on a garbage heap?

Kitty Zelda (Joy) — 26/05/2023 23:59 I've actually never heard of it If the Norwegian version of Yawning Heights starts at page 13 too, I will ask Arne about it

✨💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨
— 27/05/2023 00:06 Yeah I'd like that, it's so weird

Kitty Zelda (Joy) — 27/05/2023 00:07 Arne is sure to know

Ser Meed0kai Cinarius III Esq. — 27/05/2023 10:05

NEERDS!

Kitty Zelda (Joy) — 01/06/2023 18:56 Mine starts at page 9. Arne said that pagination differences must necessarily be compared to the Russian version of the book. Arne also said that Part II of Yawning Heights in Norwegian isn't available

✨💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨
— 01/06/2023 22:37 Maybe we can get the Russian version and just translate it ourselves

Kitty Zelda (Joy) — 02/06/2023 07:29 At least we got the book, you the whole one

✨💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨
— 02/06/2023 15:38 Yeah

to bite 'em; little parasites have lesser parasites, and so ad infinitum. They're scandalously untalented. They moan all the time and tell tales. They're always scheming. All they can think about is how best to waste more time. Look, do you see that stupid-looking sod over there knocking it back? He's one of ours. He's an Instructor, and I can tell you he's a first-class bastard and distinguished cretin. Even in the simplest situa- tions he can't tell who's for us and who's against us.' Chatterer said that it wasn't altogether bad if people worked badly in his outfit, because if they worked well there, then it really would be bad for the rest of us. Careerist said that it couldn't be any worse. This prompted Colleague to recall the well-worn old story about optimists and pessimists, (Pessimist: 'Things are as bad as they could be.' Optimist: 'Oh, no. Don't worry, they'll get worse.") and he accused Careerist of being a pessimist. 'You might think,' Careerist said, 'that you spend all your time collecting anecdotes.'

After a few more pints Chatterer said that there was a sense in which it wasn't good that people worked badly, and it would be better if things improved. 'But generally speaking'-he com- pleted his thought a few pints later-'that's of no consequence. No-one knows what is good and what is bad. Except perhaps for Writer.' Careerist said it was the same everywhere. 'Say that a vital part of a machine is broken, and we've got a very urgent, very important job to do, and we've got the go-ahead. So I ring the boss and tell him. He says, "Not to worry, I'll just ring the right department and they'll fix it for you." That evening I ring the department. They say it's the first they've heard about it. Next morning I ring the boss again. He's in a meeting and that's that. Next day I go and see him. Wait two hours. He says not to worry. Since it's so important and urgent we'll get it sorted out straightaway. He calls in the department head and tells him in my presence to get it done straightaway. Two days go by. Still nothing. A week after they've had a written order, they've got the drawings out, studied the technicalities and done the cost- ing. Two weeks later they have it ready. Only it's the wrong part and not properly made. So I go back to the boss. "Nothing I can do about it," he says, "you can see for yourself." And he shrugs his shoulders."Sort it out for yourself." So I buy a bottle of vodka and I go and see the fitters and I say, "Look lads, there's

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another one like this once I get the part." Half an hour later there it is and a few spares as well. And the boss of the depart- ment gets a bonus.' Chatterer asked how they managed to get anything done at all with such a marvellous organisation. Careerist just shrugged. Colleague said it was all trivial. Unli- mited resources. Unlimited powers. Concern for the job. Business-like people. Altogether a non-standard situation. Thereafter it became the normal kind of business where para- sites and rogues flourish. Member said that in his time nothing like that ever happened. Chatterer said that in those days there simply wasn't anything comparable so the question didn't arise. Colleague said that it was always the same. Things only work out well when we aren't around. Chatterer agreed, things are always better without people like you. Colleague said he had to go, spat into an unfinished glass of beer, said he didn't under- stand how people could drink such filthy muck, and went his way. He's a great man, thought Member, and decided to start passing on via Colleague certain denunciatory documents and his proposals for setting things right.

Schizophrenic

In the time he had free from enforced idleness Schizophrenic was writing a sociological thesis. He was doing this work with all its predictable consequences at the request of his old friend Dauber. He didn't like writing and didn't want to write. He had to go to incredible and exhausting lengths to grab hold of his thoughts as they disappeared at lightning speed, and pin them to the paper. Apart from that, he was convinced that sooner or later everybody would find out what he was doing and he would be sent back to the Laboratory. And that made him feel gloomy. But he couldn't not write. He had a vague feeling of awareness of a secret known only to him or at all events to a very few, and he could not face ending his useless life without having made every effort to communicate that secret to the world. He knew that the world was deeply uninterested in this secret, but that was of no consequence. He felt a moral duty not to other people -for he owed absolutely nothing to other people-but to himself. Mankind consisted of himself alone. And it was before the eyes of this mankind that his primitively transparent life flowed by. It was before this mankind that he would have to

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answer at his last hour. But as far as Schizophrenic was con- cerned the most unpleasant aspect of the work of writing was the lack of a table and a decent fountain pen. Once Sociologist had brought him a beautiful pen back from abroad but it had got lost somewhere. The idea of writing this thesis came from a conversation he'd

had with Dauber. Dauber had said: 'Your forecasts and appraisals are coming quite strikingly true. How do you do it?' 'It's very simple,' replied Schizophrenic. 'All you have to do is to forecast what is forecastable, and to evaluate things which there is some sense in evaluating.' 'But how do you distinguish the predictable from the unpredictable and the assessable from the unassessable?' asked Dauber. 'I have my own theory for that,' said Schizophrenic. "Tell me,' Dauber said. 'I'll try,' said Schizophrenic, 'but I warn you that it's a long way from being scientific theory.' 'Not to worry,' said Dauber, 'as long as it's true.' 'The other thing,' Schizophrenic continued, 'is that to use my theory you need patience more than thinking power. Let's say for instance, that you've been commissioned to do a painting and there's a hint of more work to come, and there've been a couple of lines in the press about your work without your name being mentioned. It might look as if there's a good wind blowing your way. But according to my theory there can't be any new winds for you. Just wait a bit longer and you'll see for yourself.' 'I've seen that for myself many times,' said Dauber. 'That's true enough,' said Schizophrenic. 'But every time it happens, you regard it as a chance fact, and not as something that is inevitable and theoretically predictable. Finally, my theory, like any other theory, is simple to the point of triviality, but learning how to use it is extremely complicated. It's rather like trying to teach an Ibanskian to eat rice with chopsticks- and you know how hard that is.' Dauber said, 'Your theory interests me as a purely intellectual manifestation, and not as an aid to the formulation of a code of sensible conduct. I rely on intuition to guide me in that. When I was in the Army I used to play dice, and I played rather well. Once I won the wages of nearly all the flying crew of my squadron. I had a whole heap of cash. Then we all went on the piss for three days. My method was very simple. First I'd stake ten roubles which I could afford to lose. If I lost I jacked it in. If I won I'd put twenty

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in the pot. If I lost I stopped, if I won, the stake went up to forty. As long as I kept on winning I went on doubling up. When the win was big enough I went for the jackpot. Some- times the game went on long enough and I won.' 'Great,' said Schizophrenic. 'You've got the mind of a true scientist, not of an artist. Your method, like my theory, only works on one condition: you have to find people prepared to gamble regularly for a long enough time. And we haven't got very much time left.'

And Schizophrenic began to write. He wrote everything straight on to the paper without corrections. When he'd written a passage he handed it to Dauber, and never gave it a further thought. Dauber handed it on to somebody else to be typed, and the thesis spread all over Ibansk by unfathomable routes, get- ting into every institution and especially into those where it wasn't intended it should go. Finally it reached the Institute where Colleague discovered it by chance in the desk of a careless instructor. Schizophrenic called his thesis Socio-Mechanics, for reasons which he set out in the text.

Socio-mechanics

Scientific sociology has been in existence for more than a cen- tury. The number of professional sociologists in the world has swollen to an improbably colossal horde. Even here in Ibansk, where sociology has been permitted for only a comparatively short time, where it's been practised only temporarily and only on a scale and in directions which are acceptable to the leader- ship, even here, in a very few years, the number of sociologists has risen beyond the thousand mark and their researches have begun to take on a menacingly scientific character. Suffice it to say by way of example, that one of our best sociologists worked out a method permitting him to demonstrate a fact which struck the imagination of the Ibansk intelligentsia like a bolt from the blue. He showed that only 99.9999999999 per cent of the leaders of Ibansk are loyal to the other leaders of Ibansk, a statement which came into violent conflict with the official point of view, according to which 105.371 per cent of the total number of leaders are loyal. As a result of this it became necessary somewhat to restrict the development of sociological research in Ibansk and the above mentioned lately-eminent

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reached a faultless diagnosis on the basis of the title alone. Instructor studied the author's explanation, but decided to dig down to the concealed essence. The thesis began with a dedica- tion.

Dedication

When he is explaining the meaning of his work to visitors to his studio, Dauber usually speaks about the problems of the inter- relation between the Spiritual and the Corporeal, the Human and the Animal, the Natural and the Urban, the Terrestrial and the Cosmic, the Great and the Small, and so on. When they hear these phrases which are clearly intended to be an indication of a high intellectual level, the visitors begin to nod their heads and to say 'da', 'ja', 'oui', 'yes', and so on according to which language they hope will provide them with a verbal equivalent for this unfamiliar material. Of course the use of such high flown language is in every way justified by Dauber's work, and of themselves, the words do not diminish the sensation of excellence which the works inspire. But there is in them another and less apparent level of content, to describe which demands the use of other linguistic resources. I have tried to formulate them. As a result I have produced a thesis which was just as much a surprise for me as for anybody else. It could perhaps be presented as an illustration to the works of Dauber, but as an out-of-the-ordinary illustration. It is an illustration of thoughts. And an illustration of thoughts should be very differ- ent from the generally familiar illustration of images. The illustration of an image is itself an image. The illustration of a thought should be a thought set out by those means which are available to the illustrator. I wrote this thesis at the request of Dauber himself, for he wanted to know one of the possible direct reactions of an interested observer of his work. I there- fore wrote it straight down and made only the most trifling corrections to the text. So if you take what I have said about an illustration as a joke, then this thesis can be regarded simply as an experimental fact relating to the problem of the perception of works of art by their contemporaries.

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CORFTUO

Treatise on fate, freedom, truth, morality and so on In this treatise which aims to be both exhaustively incomplete and rigorously unsystematic, it is my intention to set down everything which I do not know on good authority about the emergence of the guardhouse in the Ibansk School of Military Aviation (ISMA) and about its early period of development which was omitted from the official history because it had no consequences.

Terminology

In place of the generally accepted guardhousological term 'guardhouse' I am going to use the word 'cooler', primarily because it is shorter and more easily pronounced not only in Ibanskian but in any other language. But there are also other more cogent reasons. The term 'guardhouse' has a suspiciously intellectual ring. The term 'cooler' has deep roots in folk cul- ture. The term 'guardhouse' conveys a feeling of alienation but 'cooler' has about it a pleasant suggestion of spiritual refresh- ment. It is closer to the as yet unrevealed mysteries of the Ibanskian soul and is therefore a more accurate usage from the scientific point of view. And as the Ibanskian soul becomes increasingly an irresistible example to all nations, save for the temporary absence of a few, the term 'cooler' has incomparably greater perspective perespectives than its West European com- petitor. The term 'perespectives' means exactly the same as the term 'perspectives' but is to be distinguished from it by the higher social rank of those who use it. The term 'prespectives' has acquired a still higher social rating. This term may only be used by special permission of the highest authorities.

On one false hypothesis Recently there appeared an unpublished book by the struc- turalist Ibanov, a native structuralist, but one better known

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abroad, called The Roots of the Contemporary Ibanskian Lan- guage from Time Immemorial. This book alleges that the word 'cooler' arose quite independently from the West European word 'guardhouse'. Its basic derivation is the Tatar-Mongol word 'kule' (to kill). This root also developed into the word 'colony'. When the expression 'the spread of colonialism' was analysed by the computers in the Institute of Applied Coolotherapy, it was shown that the word 'colony' meant ini- tially a number of literate persons in whom the 'cooler' had a particular interest. It was only later, when all other aspects of people's social existence came under the control of the 'cooler' that the 'colony' became a territorial unit. It was on this basis that the foreign, and therefore by definition reactionary, sociologist Ibanov produced his original but far from new hypothesis on the overthrow of the Tatar-Mongol yoke and the liquidation of its results. According to this theory, far from our destroying the Tatar-Mongol hordes and driving them from our territories, the very opposite happened; they destroyed us, drove us out and stayed behind in our place for ever. Adminis- tering a well deserved rebuke to the author of this hypothesis, if it can so be described, our colleague Ibanov confirmed yet again that the cooler appeared contemporaneously with the family and private property.

Chronology

Various points of view have been expressed about the time of the establishment of the cooler in ISMA. And as is usual in serious modern science, none of those theories corresponds to reality. Thus, in the five-volume work by our most distin- guished coolerologist Ibanov, The Genesis of the Cooler and its Influence on the Subsequent Democratisation of Society, it is claimed that the cooler in ISMA was established only at the end of January. But one Fellow-worker who has survived for the moment, personally spent ten days in this cooler in December. Moreover when he arrived he found that there was already a group of men under arrest who had had time to acquire all the signs of a spontaneous prime social cell. As has been established by our applied sociology-recently authorised within reason- able limits (see for example the book by Ibanov and Ibanov, A Tentative and Officially-approved Introduction to So-Called

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✨💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨
— 29/06/2023 04:28 🦆It seems to me like Zinoviev is poking fun at a few things in this new chapter already. The idea that invaders are seen as seperate is challenged firstly, then, this entire text was also shown as a false hypothesis, as the power structures of the day used academia to warp the past to serve their needs. It's a clever commentary on how power dynamics influence the present as well as our understanding of the past.

The idea that colony came from the word cooler is interesting too. Meaning to convey "spiritual refreshment" despite its true purpose as a means of control and suppression. This is further expanded with colonialism. It's of interest to me how this wordplay was handled in the original Russian.

✨💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨
— 29/06/2023 04:37 Still, the power dynamics between cooler and colony interest me. The cooler seems to exert power over the colony.

Applied Sociology)-the formation of such a social cell begins with the emergence of a leader, a process which needs at least a week to accomplish, and is completed by an initially unsus pected cell member becoming an informer. This transforma- tion, which takes place unnoticed by the other members of the cell, and by the member himself, brings a social cell of this kind into the social organism as a whole. This takes at least another week. Thus at the time of arrival of our Fellow-worker in the cooler it had been in operation for no less than two weeks. Here we must disagree with Ibanov who, in his prize-winning mono- graph, Informers in the Service of Social Cybernetics, reduces this period to one week on the basis that the official informer Writer had been planted in the cooler, where he could not have failed to pursue his normal calling.

The fact of the matter is that the emergence of an individual as an informer in official and spontaneous social groupings follows laws whose principles differ in each case. In particular, as Ibanov proved in his article Mathematical Models in the Theory of the Classification of Informers, in official social cells the informer is appointed and in spontaneously-formed cells he simply emerges. Moreover the fact that Writer was an official informer was known from the beginning in the cooler and therefore he could not have been the immanent informer in the given social cell. It is perhaps worth remarking that the identity of this latter has not yet been completely established. Ibanov's opinion that the immanent informer was Patriot is not without foundation but it cannot be considered proven. Patriot himself in a major article published in the collection Victims hints at Dauber and even at Deviationist. Finally during his time in the cooler as an official informer, Writer specialised in reporting on such matters as stolen property, absence without leave, mali- cious gossip and so on, while the immanent informer would clearly have specialised in thoughts and intentions, as the fol lowing facts show. The theft by the prisoners of the largest cooking pot (Ferdinand) full of porridge remained undisco- vered while a guard who took part in a discussion about objec tive truth and revealed his views on guard-duty, was very soon removed from the school and dispatched to an undisclosed destination. We may presume that the confusion over the pre- cise date of the establishment of the cooler in ISMA is also

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connected with the fact that in January it was transferred from the room next to the kitchen to the cellar beneath the guard- room. Written evidence about the existence of the cooler before this transfer has not been preserved as a result of the walls being whitewashed, and historians have erroneously accepted the date of the transfer as the date of establishment. Incidentally this mistake illustrates one of the great merits of the general principle of historicism in our approach to problem-solving.

The school building

It is generally acknowledged that the ISMA building is the most beautiful and majestic of all those within the urban confines of Ibansk. Stamps depicting it can be found even in the countries of Latin America and Black Africa. It was built shortly before the War from a half-ruined stately home, an unfinished house belonging to a merchant, and a synagogue, and it has passed firmly into our golden architectural heritage. As a result, more than five hundred administrators, military leaders and visiting writers were given prizes, and comrade Ibanov himself was given two (the first for forbidding it, the second for authorising it). The bourgeois modernist Le Corbusier, when he saw the building with his own eyes, said that there now was nothing left for him to do here, and returned home. The leading art critic Ibanov, writing about this in his article Why I am not a Moder- nist, pointed out that that was the best place for him. The main feature of the ISMA building is that it has two façades: the main one in the rear, and a spare one at the front. The façades are built in so many varied styles that foreign tourists and guests-and even old inhabitants-still believe that they are different buildings. Because of this, before the war the munici- pal government handed the building over simultaneously to two organisations-the Aero Club and the Meat and Dairy Combine. A conflict situation developed. The bosses of each organisation prepared dossiers highly critical of each other and the leaders of both groups were arrested. Soon the supply of raw material for one of the conflicting organisations ran out, and the conflict was resolved with complete theoretical correctness. In his book The Unity and Conflict of Opposites in the Town of Ibansk and its Surroundings, the philosopher Ibanov quoted this

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case as a characteristic example of the fact that in our country, as distinct from others, contradictions do not grow into ant- agonisms but are resolved through being overtaken by events, If you stand facing the main façade of the ISMA building, with

your back to the town's main waterway, the River Ibanuchka, and the planned hydro-electric station, you will immediately understand how right Leader Ibanov was when he said, at the official opening ceremony, that in the radiant future which had recently dawned, every worker would live in splendid palaces like this. The façade of the building is decorated with nine hundred columns of every order known to world architecture, and on the roof a multitude of towers reaches towards the sky, blending into a unified whole, a perfect reproduction of the inimitable domes of the church of Iban the Blessed. Overcome by so much beauty, Ibanov, the world-famous engineer of human souls, produced this high-flown sentence in the editorial of the bi-annual journal Dawn of the North-East: 'In the pres ence of such unearthly beauty one can only stand to attention and bare one's head. His namesake Ibanov, an officer-cadet, happened to glance at the aesthetic aspect of the building- which in his erroneous opinion was completely unsuited to normal human life-and, warily examining the three-storey- high statue of the Leader, whispered to his old friend, cadet Ibanov: 'As far as the number of columns per head of popula- tion goes, we have overtaken even the Greeks. Now we are the leading columnial power in the world.' His friend reported this conversation to the appropriate authorities, and the fate of the slanderer was decided before taps was sounded that evening. As it is put in The Ballad:

And cursing his fate, not a word of farewell, He was carted away to a nasty cold cell. The cell he was put into was one in the barracks, because the cells at ISMA hadn't yet been built. This gave the Command of the school a shadowy notion. As a result, Colleague was sent off on a Qualification Advancement Course where he went back to his study of the Prime Sources.

The shithouse

The designers of the ISMA building made one minor omission which was later to play an important part in the development of

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the literature of lavatorial realism. The architects made no provision for the shithouse. It later became clear that this was at deliberate and malicious omission, as they supported Ibanov's erroneous theory which states that shithouses should be eradi- cated at the initial stage. The writer Ibanov then produced another memorable sentence: 'If anyone gets caught, he is to be eliminated.' The omission was noticed only when the building was taken over exclusively by the Aero Club. They had to find a spot in the courtyard a long way from the building, and less cluttered with rubbish than the rest, and build a latrine-type shithouse. Two hours had to be allocated in the cadets' working day for trips to the lavatory, calculated on the basis of three ten-minute visits per head, and fifteen hazard-free seats. Of course there was not calculation in the real sense. The figure was initially arrived at purely empirically, and only given a theoretical basis ex post facto by the use of the powerful instru- ment of modern multiplication tables. Our local philosopher Ibanov used this in his book The Dialectics of the General and the Particular in the Town of Ibansk and its Environs as a brilliant example of the theoretical prediction of an empirical fact, com- parable in its consequences for the development of science with the discovery of the positron. After dark there was a consider- able risk that a visit to the shithouse would result in your getting a soiled uniform, and so the cadets began to avoid using it even during the day. A path was built, but it was too late-the cadets had become accustomed to using any convenient crannies of the rubbish tip in the yard, and the shithouse itself came to be used only by suspicious and solitary intellectuals seeking to display their ego. They were put under close observation.

On the non-use of information

On the way to the Bar Chatterer was joined by Schizophrenic. Colleague and Member were already there. Member was pres- sing Colleague to take an exercise book in which he'd set out his thoughts on reconstruction. He kept on pleading with the inflexible Colleague that it was stupid to try to cover up things like floods and earthquakes, things for which the Government had no responsibility. They are natural disasters or statistical facts which are unavoidable in any complex process. And rumours are bound to spread anyway. Colleague tried to change.

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the subject by telling anecdotes. But, like any typical survivor of that epoch, Member had undergone a total amputation of his sense of humour and was totally immune to laughter. As Col- league gloomily eyed this fiendish fighter for truth, he said to himself, "This is exactly what you deserve, you miserable cre- tin. I should have given up these stinking ideas long ago and taken up currency speculation. The pay is better and there's less responsibility. And the people are nicer.' Member refused to give up: 'Just take this latest price-drop. Why couldn't you honestly and directly tell people that the harvest was too good, that productivity had increased more than expected and com- modity prices had fallen below the norm? Then people would understand and show some initiative themselves." At this point Chatterer and Schizophrenic joined in the discussion. Col- league tried to change the subject, with a wink to show that Instructor was listening, but Chatterer said he didn't give a damn, just let him go on eavesdropping-after all, that was what he was paid for. And if Colleague didn't like it, he could go f himself-no one was keeping him. Schizophrenic said Member was talking nonsense, as information, by definition, could never be truthful and complete. No information at all was needed for the normal functioning of society, and the leader- ship's instinct was correct: to inflate worthless trivia, hush up important events and do all our rethinking for us. Perhaps it's not so much a correct instinct as a natural way of behaving. Perhaps the leadership would gladly have acted differently, but could not. Chatterer said that a healthy society, like a healthy man, didn't need information about the state of its health, and such information was totally useless to a dying man or to a dying society. Member began to sound off about disease and diag- nosis. Chatterer objected that sickness is the normal condition of society; societies cannot be cured for the doctors do not exist, and those who do make diagnoses and write out prescriptions must be crushed like bed-bugs. "That's not the heart of the matter,' said Colleague. 'You must lie to speak the truth, and speak the truth so as to lie.' And Colleague told the well-known anecdote about how one of our athletes was beaten by one of theirs, and the way it was reported in our papers was that our man came second and that theirs was next to the last. In the final analysis, radio, television and the newspapers don't derive from

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the essential essence of the 'Ism'. Schizophrenic said that when truth was permitted because it was unavoidable, it was gener- ally known already and there was no need to reveal it. So people prefer to wander about aimlessly, leaping from one magnificent lie to another. A lie is always a revelation. And afterwards it can always be justified on the grounds that existence is complicated and that anyone can make an honest error.

Chatterer said that there are certain objective laws of disin- formation like the laws of gravity, and that Schizophrenic almost certainly had some thoughts on that subject. Schizo- phrenic said that such laws do indeed exist. For example there is a tendency to minimise bad news and play up good news as much as possible. And if there is no good news, it has to be invented. People do not lie from evil intent, nor from stupidity, but because deception is the most acceptable form of social intercourse. This law works strictly formally and on any mater- ial. So people lie even when there is no need to do so and even when it may be harmful, because that is the only thing they know how to do. Member said that this theory did not explain the distortion of history. 'On the contrary,' said Colleague. 'People need to be told that everything was always worse before. For even a verifiable triviality may disclose a higher standard of living in the present.' Member said that the truth about the past cannot be hidden. There is incontrovertible material evidence. Chatterer said that only idiots would let them- selves be consoled like that. Initially people hide the truth deliberately, and then cannot recognise it even when they want to. The only reliable props of memory are mammoths' broken skulls and the remnants of their last meal. And you can hardly call that history! History leaves no traces. It only leaves conse- quences which have nothing in common with the circumstances which gave rise to them.

The monument to the leader In front of the main façade of the ISMA building, read Instruc- tor, a larger than life-size statue to the Leader was erected on a granite pedestal with massive chains which for a long time were thought to be decorative. The foundations subsided unexpec- tedly, causing the statue to lean forward beyond the maximum permitted by the highest authorities, and it looked as though

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sooner or later the Leader would plunge his mighty nose into the River Ibanuchka, reducing the hydro-electric station. which was planned to be built close by, into fragments. The sculptor was dealt with appropriately. Colleague came from the capital and discovered that in this position the statue had become even more stable. And the Very Important Person, who had come to present the development with a medal, observed that the statue inspired a feeling of guilt and a fear that this very guilt was about to crush you, which fully coincided with the Leader's world-renowned humanism. But it was too late to resurrect the sculptor, for science discovered how to do this only a great deal later. And even if he had been resurrected, there would have remained some doubt whether he was actually the same person. The statue was so oriented that wherever a cadet was going, he was bound to come face to face with it. This had an irresistible effect. On one occasion, Fellow-worker was setting off on French leave and when he saw the familiar profile outlined against the gloomy sky, he turned back in horror. Then he tried to slip away by climbing over the fence by the shithouse although this route was more dangerous. When the cult of personality was unmasked, and all its consequences were liquidated, the statue was hidden somewhere for the time being, and replaced by a naked torso by Ibanov which everyone ignored. Ten years before this event, Colleague had dreamed a prophetic dream in which he saw the statue totter and begin to fall. At first Colleague rejoiced and cried 'at last!' but then he saw that the statue was falling directly on top of him and he trembled. He tried to hold it up, but he wasn't strong enough and it crashed in quite a different direction-to this day, no-one knows in precisely which. For this, Colleague was elected to the Academy.

The ballad

The Ballad of the Unknown Officer-Cadet was published for the first and last time on the walls of the old shithouse at ISMA. Its supposed author, cadet Ibanov, was in consequence removed from the school, sent to the front, and soon became unknown. The Ballad began like this:

I, my lads, am not a poet. I've no talent and I know it.

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I don't write for publication

But if I'm very bored, why then I take a pencil or a pen.

And get no remuneration. What is more if truth be told, Writing really leaves me cold. There's no need to read right through it, But I'd best get on and do it.

When on guard I'm bored indeed That's when I tried to write this screed.

In January the old shithouse was destroyed. In its place a new one was built with a higher coefficient of utility and a lower cost price per unit. After this the staff and reservists of the school recognised the existence of two separate epochs: the epoch of the old shithouse and that of the new. The earlier period became a legend which enshrined all the best qualities of civil- isation. The walls of the new shithouse were covered in no time with sketches, verses and aphorisms, largely of a certain erotic content. But there was nothing to equal The Ballad. And Deviationist was moved to prophecy: The time of the master- pieces was over, and the epoch of mass production of medioc- rity was upon us. Since The Ballad was never published in any other form and since the memory of man is short-lived and fragmentary, this outstanding production of wall art must in all probability be considered to be lost forever. But the degrada- tion of art was compensated for by the progress of scientific thought. Patriot, who took part in the building of the new shithouse, discovered two qualitatively differing strata of excrement and formulated the idea of measuring the calorific value of food by the calorific value of what remained as a result of its consumption by the average cadet. These two strata also differ sharply from the point of view of their emotional relation- ship to the world. It is perhaps enough to compare such lines from The Ballad as:

When they served us herring soused

We got some liquor and caroused with the best lines from the new lavatory era, for example these: in order to see the change from the joyous themes-in the spirit

I sat weeping on the pot, Ate a little, crapped a lot

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of the High Renaissance-to a gloomy decadence. The Deputy Political Instructor, who just happened to look into this new shithouse, deduced from this the need to strengthen political education. The results soon became apparent. Alongside the lines quoted above appeared these new ones:

For one long hour I sat and writhed And laughed until I split my sides,

I only had one bowl of kasha But filled the bog up, what a smasher. But it's hard to say whether this was a manifestation of opti- mism, or just skilled apologetics.

Deviationist

In December, cadet Ibanov, who was on a training flight, parachuted out of his plane. His explanation was that his engine had caught fire. But when the aircraft crashed, it did not burst into flame. The expert commission which examined the engine discovered the charred fragments of cloth but attached no significance to it. Their argument ran as follows:

Since the plane did not catch fire even when it hit the ground, then it is clear that there was no danger of fire in the air. To this cadet Ibanov replied that judgements about the past which seemed true in the present were not necessarily true in the past, and that he would have liked to have seen what conclusion the experts would have reached when they saw flames coming from the engine if they had been at that moment in the aircraft. Colleague, who had done research on this subject before the War and had come very close to getting the Degree of Candidate of Humane Sciences, unmasked this statement as an attempt to distort dialectics by means of bourgeois formal logic. Cadet Ibanov's action was construed as an attempt to deviate by means of the deliberate destruction of valuable war material. And cadet Ibanov (hereafter known as Deviationist) was sent off to join Slanderer.

My God! My God! Oh, what a fall! They've sent me to a tribunal.

(from The Ballad)

Murderer

Because I am so weak and human

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I was tempted by a woman. I stroked her tits and pinched her fanny;

I'm not a very fussy man-I

Should have looked more at her face I wouldn't be in such disgrace.

(from The Ballad) In December cadet Ibanov, who'd grabbed himself a bit of French leave, wounded the female citizen Ibanova in her left buttock with a home-made knife. At the inquiry cadet Ibanov testified that he was passionately in love with female citizen Ibanova and was going to marry her but that she had caprici- ously deceived him, lured by the gift of food offered to her by Quarter-master Rat Face, and had begun to co-habit with him as well. Colleague examined the weapon, experimented with it on female citizen Ibanova's right buttock, and failed to under- stand how cadet Ibanov had managed with such a blunt knife to penetrate the thick hide of female citizen Ibanova; his suspi- cions were aroused. When they were drawing up the indictment none of those present could think of a scientific, or indeed any literary, term for a woman's arse. It was cadet Ibanov who proposed that the word buttock should be used here, to which Colleague replied that now it was all clear to him. Cadet Ibanov (from now on known as Murderer) was put into the cells together with Deviationist and Slanderer to await transfer to the garrison prison. Female citizen Ibanova came to visit Mur- derer, and when he saw her through the window, he was horrified. As The Ballad puts it:

Never in my life, I trow,

Have I seen so plain a cow.

I look again and feel all woosey-

Could that really be my floosey? Slanderer asked Murderer whether he had really meant to marry her. He answered that it was perfectly possible. Firstly, he'd only seen her in the dark. Secondly she was the first (and perhaps the last) woman in his life, and thirdly there was something about her.

A report for the leader

"Why haven't we seen you for such a long time?" asked Member. 'I've been very busy,' said Chatterer. 'We're writing a

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report for the Leader, who wants to deliver this report specially for us." "What's the report about?' asked Member curiously. I don't know,' said Chatterer. 'We'll find out when we hear it.' Member said that in his time Himself wrote all his own speeches. Chatterer said that Himself couldn't write at all. It was simply that there were fewer reports and, for one reason or another, the people who wrote them never survived. Usually for the other reason. 'OK,' said Member, 'now stop pulling my leg.' 'I'm not,' said Chatterer, 'that's the way it is. We noticed ourselves that we were in need of correction and re-orientation. So we reported this through channels. So the decision was taken that we be corrected and re-orientated, and the decision was communicated to the proper quarters. The matter went right up to the Deputies. Since the Leader had decided that it was time for him to interfere in something personally, he was steered in this direction. He told the Deputies to prepare a report four hours long. The Deputies told the Assistants, the Assistants told the Bosses and the Directors, and so it came down to your humble servants. We of course, as aristocrats of the spirit, wouldn't get involved in this sort of thing. So we passed the job of preparing the report to the most mediocre, coarse, and hamfisted Executives who were desperate for advancement by any means, for any kind of advancement. They write down a load of mush, with inflated figures, absurd references and distorted notions, all plagiarised, and this flow of completely inconsequential nonsense is set moving upwards. At every stage it is polished by the rejection of sentences which could be interpreted in more than one way, by the addition of sentences which totally defy interpretation of any kind, by substituting woolly formulae for precise ones, by rounding off figures and so on. The huge army of miscellaneous officials, high-grade and low-grade, spend a great deal of time on visits to official retreats and luxury sanatoria and on study trips abroad. For at least half a year, the report goes up and down for re-writing and re-re-writing. Finally the text is typed out in bold letters and with the stressed syllables underlined, and it lands on the Leader's desk. Advisers indicate the comments that the Leader should make on the report, and after the Leader has given his approval, the text goes back down again for another rewrite. It's true that this time nothing is done about it,

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because the final version of the report taking into account the Leader's observations, has already been prepared for reading and has long been waiting in the adjacent office which belongs to the Assistant directly concerned.

At the proper occasion, the Leader has several rehearsals and then delivers the speech, getting all the stresses wrong and distorting all the foreign words. And the report becomes a document of the greatest historical importance. It will be pub- lished in three volumes with illustrations and commentaries. The Journal will print explanatory articles, reactions, praise, promises, and of course, criticism of those who are in error and who don't understand. Claimant will write a leading article with references to the Leader, the Deputies and the Assistants in a proportion of 50-10-1 on every page. We shall be obliged to study the report in special meetings organised for the purpose. And only then will we understand what we have done, what we should have done, and what we should on no account have done. Member said that that of course was a parody. Even he wrote his own works himself. Chatterer said that that's why Member was always having his knuckles rapped. If he were to follow the example of the Leader, his pamphlets could be found in massive editions in every lavatory. Schizophrenic asserted that Chatterer's outline was perfectly straight-faced: since where mass exploitation is concerned, the greatest wisdom coincides with the greatest stupidity. So, from the point of view of the final result, it is a matter of complete indifference whether a report is prepared by first-class intellectuals, or by first-class fools. And as the latter are, for many familiar reasons, preferable to the former, it is they who write the reports and so the reports turn out a good deal wiser than if they had been composed by geniuses.

Scientific laws

Initially, this is what I planned, wrote Schizophrenic. To draw up a list of clear intuitive statements about the rules governing social behaviour, and then, basing myself on this, to construct a theory, observing all the rules for the construction of theories, i.e. setting out the basic concepts and postulates and going on to the derivative concepts, theorems and so on. But later, after discussions with people of various classes and educational

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levels, I came to realise that this was only a secondary technical ity. The man in the street is interested not in science as such but only in the forewords, explanations, and digressions which relate to it. In the present case, the theory which I was prepar ing to construct is devoid of meaning unless we first establish to what category of objects it relates. This must be done if only because even tentative clarity has been lost amid the welter of literature produced here on the subject. In particular, even among professional sociologists, I have met no-one who could define what is meant by the concept of the social individual, far less agree with anybody else about it. Moreover, the whole concept of scientific laws and the methodology of science is subject to such confusion and ambiguity among the specialists that I am obliged to descend to an even more fundamental linguistic base and define what I mean by the scientific law. As a result, the theory I had originally hoped to propound will have to be postponed indefinitely.

A scientific law is a statement (an assertion, a judgement, or a proposition) which possesses certain characteristics: (1) it is true only under specific conditions; (2) under these conditions it is true at all times and in all cases without any exceptions whatsoever (the exception which proves the rule is a dialectical nonsense); (3) the conditions under which such a statement is true are never fully realised in reality but only partially and approximately. So it cannot be asserted literally that scientific laws are detectable in the reality under study (discovered); they are thought up (invented) on the basis of the study of experimen- tal data calculated in such a way that they can afterwards be used to derive new judgments from the given judgments about reality (including use for prediction) by the route of pure logic. The laws of science of themselves can neither be refuted nor confirmed empirically. They can be justified or not depend ing on how well or how badly they fulfil the role indicated above.

Let us take for example this assertion: 'If in one firm a man is paid more for his work than in another firm, then the man will choose to work in the former on condition that for him the work in both these firms differs only in the scale of payment.' That part of the sentence after the words 'on condition' determines the condition of the law. It is clear that two jobs identical in

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everything save the pay do not exist. There is at best a certain approximation to this ideal from the point of view of one individual or another. If we find cases where the man chooses to work in the firm where the pay is less, these cases do not negate the assertion under consideration. It will be clear in such cases that the condition of the law has not been fulfilled. It may even happen that in observed reality, people always choose work in firms which pay less. Nor can this be interpreted as a demon- stration of the falsity of our assertion. This may arise for the reason that in such firms, other conditions of labour are more acceptable (for example a shorter working day, lighter duties, or a chance of doing some of one's own work in the firm's time). In such a situation the assertion under consideration may be excluded from the number of scientific laws as non-operative and unnecessary.

It should be clear from the above that one cannot regard as a scientific law an assertion which merely generalises from the results of observation. For example, a man who is obliged to go round Government departments and observe an assortment of departmental heads might reach a conclusion: 'All departmen- tal heads are scroungers and careerists.' This assertion may be true or false. But it is not a scientific law since it is qualified by no conditions. If there are conditions which make no differ- ence, then it is a special case and should be so indicated. But if the conditions make no difference, then they are fulfilled by any situation and the concept of a scientific law becomes necessarily inapplicable.

Normally the kind of conditions that are determinant do not fall into the category above but apply to concrete manifestations which are subject to observation. Take for example this asser- tion: 'In mass production the quality of the product diminishes so long as the enterprise is being run by inept management, and so long as there is no personal responsibility for quality and no personal interest in the maintenance of quality.' Here the condition is so formulated that examples can be adduced of such conditions in reality. And it does not exclude the possibil- ity of cases where mass production may be linked with an improvement in quality since there may be other powerful factors in operation which the assertion overlooks. This kind of assertion is not a scientific law. It is merely a general assertion

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which may be true or false and which actual instances may confirm or refute. If we speak of scientific laws, we must distinguish between

what are described as the laws of things themselves, and the assertions people make about these laws. The delicacy of this distinction lies in the fact that we know about the laws of things only by formulating certain assertions, and we accept the laws of science as a description of the laws of things. However, this distinction can be drawn sufficiently clearly and simply. The laws of things can be described by the most varied linguistic means including assertions of the type, 'All men are deceivers', 'If you flick a mare on the nose she will wag her tail' and so on, which are not scientific laws. If, in a scientific law its basic part is separated from the description of the conditions, then this basic part can be interpreted as a determination of the law of things. And in this sense scientific laws are essentially an asser- tion of the laws of things. But the isolation of scientific laws as special linguistic forms involves our directing our attention in quite a different direction from that of the question of the laws of things and their corollaries. The similarity of phraseology and the apparent coincidence of the problems create complica- tions here which are out of all proportion with the essential banality of the matter under scrutiny.

To distinguish scientific laws from the laws of things, it is clear that we must distinguish between the consequences of the former and the latter. The consequences of the former consist of the assertions derived from them by general rules or rules relating to the science in question. And they are also scientific laws (although derivative in relation to the laws engendering them). For example, one can construct a sociological theory in which, from a given postulate, namely that the individual strives to evade responsibility for his behaviour to other indi- viduals who are in some sort of common relationship with him, there will be derived a given assertion, namely that the indi- vidual tends to social failure (not to keep his word, not to keep secrets, to waste other people's time, and so on). Moreover, the derived assertions are governed by the same conditions as the original postulates. The difficulty of normal deduction here lies in the fact that all the postulates underlying the conclusion should contain a fixed element defining the conditions, or else

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this element should itself be a conclusion. The general scheme of deduction is this: from the postulates 'A on condition B' and "Con condition that D' is derived 'X on condition that Y' if Y is derived from B and from D simultaneously.

The consequence of laws of things fixed by scientific laws is not more laws of things but certain facts of reality itself to which the scientific laws are related. Take for example a law according to which there exists a tendency to appoint to senior posts not the wisest and the most talented people but the most mediocre and dim-witted-who are acceptable to management on other grounds and have the right connections. The consequence of this law is that in a given sphere of activity (for example in research institutes, in schools and universities, in cultural organisations and so on), senior posts are usually (or at any rate frequently) occupied by people who are stupid and inept from the point of view of the business they are involved in but cunning and resourceful in terms of their career interests. At every step people come up against the effects of social laws. Some of these laws are subjectively dismissed as coincidences (although in strict logic the word 'coincidence' is totally inap- propriate), and others cause surprise, although they occur regu- larly. Who has never heard someone say, or never said himself, about the appointment of a certain person to a senior post, 'how could they appoint such a fool to such a responsible job, how could they give such a cretin such work to do and so on'? But it is not this kind of thing that should cause surprise but rather when senior posts are given to wise, honest and talented people. That is truly a deviation from the law. But that too is no accident. It is no accident not in the sense that it conforms with the law, but in the sense that the concept of coincidence is here once again unsuitable. Incidentally the expression 'responsible post' is stupid since all posts are irresponsible-the expression has sense only as an indication of the high grade of the post.

Chatterer

At this point Schizophrenic remembered Chatterer. In order to understand what society is made up of, he thought, mere emotion and a good grasp of facts are quite inadequate no matter how many facts there are and how terrifying they may seem to the man in the street. An advanced system of

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methodological principles of understanding is also required. These principles are simple and accessible to all. But in pre- paration someone must formulate them in a rigorously profes sional manner. Chatterer could do it, but evidently he has dropped out after all this business. What a pity that such a brilliant mind should be wasted like that.

The doubts of Dauber

Dauber said that the question of the relationship between scien- tific laws and the laws of things still remained unclear to him. Was reflection appropriate here or not? Schizophrenic said that he was getting deeply bored by the number of examples which confirmed the correctness of his theory. One of the conse- quences of the action of social laws was a tendency to a single- plane orientation of consciousness. A certain pattern of lines of force developed, turning the minds of men in one and the same direction. Everyone had to think according to the plan: scien- tific laws either reflected the laws of life or they did not. At the present time it was considered progressive to acknowledge both propositions in part. But that does not change the general orientation. 'And even you,' said Dauber, 'you do not see the possibility of any other position. But logically there can be no other position.' 'What has logic got to do with this?' asked Schizophrenic. 'How about this position: "I don't give a damn what you think or say on this subject"? That is a position of indifference to the given orientation; it is a preference for a different orientation in which this kind of question does not even arise. You would call me a cretin if I were to start talking about your work in terms of "reflecting", "expressing" and so on.' Dauber said that now he understood. But he took the oppor- tunity to ask Sociologist for his professional opinion about Schizo- phrenic's manuscript. Sociologist leafed through the manuscript, admiring himself in the mirror, and pronounced it a load of rubbish, a pale imitation of obsolete ideas from abroad; he cited a few dozen foreigners and six of our people (three times his own, twice that of his wife, and once that of Thinker). But Schizo phrenic's manuscript disturbed him: it was beyond a joke! Just think, here we are, doing an important job, slaving away, put- ting in time on trips abroad and at meetings, defending theses, writing articles and books summing up the situation and pros

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pects, practically turning ourselves inside out, and along comes a twopenny-halfpenny junior research worker without a degree, who has the nerve to form his own judgements on questions on which we and only we are the acknowledged experts! No, that really made him spit. After he'd admired his features for another half hour in the mirror, Sociologist tele- phoned Colleague.

A dinner at Claimant's One evening Claimant, who had played an outstanding if unnoticed role in the experiment we are considering, gave a dinner party. The guests were Sociologist and his Wife, and Thinker without his wife, whom he'd left as soon as he realised the worry and wastefulness of family life. Claimant took succul- ent pieces of almost raw, bloody meat, (which he got from the special 'closed' shop for top people, where the ordinary public could not buy), flung them into his gaping mouth, and chewed them with evident enjoyment. And Claimant held forth. He held forth, in a voice which could be heard by all those who wanted to hear or overhear, and one which could not fail to be heard by those who did not want to, and even by those who positively wanted not to hear. He lubricated his words with foreign wines acquired during his many trips abroad and brought back as gifts because he liked the bottles, unfamiliar to the Ibanskian eye in shape and colour, for all that these contained a filthy liquid that Claimant found loathsome, and which, when he was alone with his ghastly wife and his grimy conscience, he rejected in favour of his more usual hooch. "It's high time we got rid of all these rogues and scoundrels," trumpeted Claimant, 'for if we do not, soon they will take over. Our duty.... We must. . . . To lead the workers and the intellectuals along the right road.' Sociologist took succu- lent, well cooked chunks of meat bought from the special 'closed' shop, crammed them into his gaping mouth, getting them tangled up in his beard, and masticated with evident disdain. He adored airing his views on avant-garde topics, and hated it when he was prevented from doing so. He was now suffering therefore from an enforced mutism, for Claimant never let his interlocutors get in a single word. He held the exotic bottles up to the light with the air of a connoisseur,

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✨💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨
— 12/08/2023 03:26 I want to make a model of the ISMA building.

@Kitty Zelda (Joy) who is schizophrenic?

I feel as though the writing in this is designed for me to reread passages over and over, like retracing my own footsteps every step I take.

✨💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨
— 12/08/2023 03:36 The shithouse deep lore is actually really funny and well done. I like how the full poem isn't shown to make it more mysterious and cool, and how it's given more importance than actual eras basically

✨💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨
— 12/08/2023 11:53 @Kitty Zelda (Joy) Do you think Chatterer Ibanov represents wasted intellectual potential, the elusiveness of true understanding, both, or something else entirely? I think these pages show some stabs at intellectual elitism, especially interactions between Schizophrenic and Sociologist. Sociologist is shown as very vain, preferring a mirror over reading Schizophrenic's manuscript. Perhaps Zinoiev believes Schizophrenic and Sociologist are meant to balance discussion on these topics to allow a healthy dialectic? It also seems like Dauber and Schizophrenic further highlight the conflict between conformist and individualistic thought. `

✨💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨
— 12/08/2023 12:01 The gatekeeping against Schizophrenic's manuscript, to me, highlights societal trend where established figures or institutions may resist change or new perspectives, in doing so perpetuating the status quo as well, which kinda feeds into all this The shithouse, though, is my favorite part. A visceral building of metaphor, representing the necessary but taboo elements of society too crass to be elevated to social discourse.



It's a reminder to us of the shared human experience that transcends class or even society to some extent, the egalitarian space that's necessarily accessible to all.

I also think, much like in my own life and experiences, that the shithouse represents the inconsequential nature of discourse, how it's trivial and ultimately will be torn down. In my own experience, this happened to me when years of my own discourse and shitposting was scrubbed from facebook.

It's also, almost paradoxically, a metaphor for the base realities that remain in spite of all intellectual posturing. We must all touch grass eventually, and the shithouse is the ultimate grass touching literary device.

(full critical theory analysis of the ISMA shithouse)

Kitty Zelda (Joy) — 12/08/2023 12:08 Ive not read the pages you have quoted yet But the first thing I think about is possibly the sluggish schizophrenia phenomenon that was used as a political abuse of psychiatry in the USSR (which primarily skyrocketed under Brezhnev)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sluggish_schizophrenia

✨💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨
— 12/08/2023 12:34 " it was diagnosed even in patients who showed no symptoms of schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders, on the assumption that these symptoms would appear later." holy shit

Kitty Zelda (Joy) — 12/08/2023 13:01 Yeah, the Brezhnev era was brutal for dissidents

✨💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨
— 12/08/2023 13:47 But in a way more kafkaesque than the rest of Russia's history it seems

✨💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨ — 20/08/2023 20:05 @Kitty Zelda (Joy) may I credit you on my website for this? I wish to post everything in this channel on my website, so that yawning heights and our commentary can help people better understand Yawning Heights. 🙂

Kitty Zelda (Joy) — 21/08/2023 10:19 Sure you can!

✨💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨ — 21/08/2023 11:22 Thanks!!!

clicked his tongue, and drank incredible amounts of possible blend. This lad'll go far, he thought, watching Claim- ant. He's got a devilish grasp of things. I know what he's after! And he's got a good chance, too. If we were to help him, then the cause of our left-wing intellectuals would be greatly advanced. And Sociologist nodded his head in agreement with what Claimant was saying. Wife fastidiously took morsels of medium-rare meat from the special 'closed' shop with her stubby little sharp-nailed fingers, placed them neatly in her gaping mouth, munched them quickly, and coquettishly hitched her leather miniskirt a little higher to reveal her thighs the fat thighs of a forty-year-old bluestocking. She was even fonder of holding forth than Sociologist and Claimant, and had a complete right to, for she was intellectually far more able than anyone present except Thinker, a fact of which she had become increasingly doubtful recently, since she had defended her thesis. And so she suffered more than anyone else from the effrontery of Claimant, who completely ignored her as a stupid cow. Claimant, she thought, is a boor and a lout. But he is determined and he does understand the situation. And he's got connections. He's well read, of course. And anyway he's a head taller than all these Neanderthals. They are all just common criminals. There's no one around with a better claim than Claimant. And above all, he's one of US. every

Thinker took almost raw pieces of meat from the special 'closed shop in his great hairy paw with its dirty nails, steered them in the direction of his gaping mouth, and chewed them leisurely with the air of a man doing everyone a favour. Thinker was an incredibly wise man and he understood that it was better not to interrupt Sociologist and his Wife, as what they said was almost always rubbish; and that as far as Claimant was con cerned, one had to speak with gestures. His mighty bald dome radiated total understanding and agreement with Claimant's views. This scum's really got it made, he thought. Ah well that's life. In this world it's only the nonentities and the rogues who prosper. Incidentally, I mustn't forget to touch him for a couple of hundred. Thinker had long owed Claimant a massive sum of money, but today he was desperately short. He had to find a hundred roubles to pay for an ikon he was giving to an Italian girl who had brought him some velvet trousers as a

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present, and with whom he planned to sleep, and another hundred for an ikon to give to a French girl who had brought him some socks and who planned to sleep with him. This is first-rate meat, said Thinker, when Claimant paused for a second to shove his forefinger in his mouth and search the crannies of his teeth for an errant fragment. Claimant said he was entitled to it. Incidentally, he'd had a word with Assistant, and they'd take Thinker on part-time. They'd got a good closed shop, too. Just ignore what it looks like outside. "They've got some very bright people. You can get away with saying things there that'd get you into big trouble anywhere else. And they're training people not for us, but for their own uses. And of course the standard's got to be higher. So there'll be lots of travelling. They send all their staff who've got foreign languages abroad to lecture.'

'I think,' said Claimant, reverting to his earlier theme, 'I think we've got to attract the cissies for the good of the cause. Especially Slanderer. He'd bring a whole flock with him. He thinks a lot of himself of course, but he's certainly a figure- head. We'll have to get him made an Academician.' Wife said that of course Slanderer deserved it, but we mustn't forget that there are others who are no worse-and perhaps even bet- ter-and younger. 'One of Thinker's articles has just been translated, and I'm just about to publish my pamphlet. It might be thought of as being too popular, but all the same I've managed to include a lot of interesting thoughts on the dialec- tics of the general and the particular, and to have a good go at Secretary.' Sociologist interrupted his Wife. 'What's supposed to be so special about Slanderer? If he'd done anything remark- able, he'd have made sure that everyone knew about it and talked about it. But no-one knows anything or understands anything. And you don't come across many references to him, either. They're fewer and fewer.' Thinker said that Slanderer was far from naive and uninterested in day-to-day matters. 'He gets paid in foreign currency for the translations of his books." 'Oh, they're like sheep; they're all pretence,' said Claimant, 'but they pick up what they can where they can. I heard quite by chance that he's trying to sneak his latest book into the Pub- lishers-for a fee, of course. But for an accident, he would have got away with it.' Although they all knew that these particular

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publishers never paid fees, they all began to calculate the fee that Slanderer might have picked up for his unnecessary and incomprehensible book. Before he left, Thinker casually asked Claimant to lend him

three hundred roubles until payday. 'We all know about your paydays,' Claimant thought, but he gave him the money and got another three hundred roubles' worth of leverage over Thinker. As he lay in bed, Claimant thought about Wife's thighs (he's a lucky chap, the old windbag!) and told his own scrawny bitch that he'd been too hasty in proposing Slanderer for the Academy. Slanderer's well known and, the times being what they are, he might just make it. If he does, he won't stand on ceremony with us. He'll have our guts for garters. He thinks we're all fools and rascals. We can't be led by the nose like that. I'll have to speak to Academician. That wily old bastard's as jealous as hell of Slanderer, and he'll shoot him down in two shakes. And Claimant fell asleep, pacified. In his last waking moment there flashed across his mind the notion of taking on a housekeeper, of acceptable age-there, he thought, was some- thing he ought to consider. On the way back to their state- owned villa, Wife said to Sociologist that if she had to choose between two evils, she would choose Claimant and not Slan- derer.

Artist's statement

Artist wrote a long letter to the Institute about the activities of that so-called 'artist' Dauber, drawing very serious attention to them. He wrote that no-one understands Dauber's work. Foreigners often visited him and put out slanderous rumours that Dauber is a genius. And there are some of our own so-called intellectuals who support these rumours which have not been approved by the Commission. It is no accident that those who do not think Dauber is a genius do not visit him. And they are the overwhelming majority. It is widely known that Dauber is a drunk, a drug-addict, a womaniser, a homosexual, a lesbian, a currency speculator, every other kind of speculator, an egoist and a shark. Artist laid special stress on the fact that Dauber is not a genius by any means, and requested that urgent steps be taken in this connection.

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Colleague's report At the Bar everyone knows who I am and what my aims are. As a result, they all speak to me so openly that it is impossible to establish the truth. It seems that they consider that if a col- league does not conceal who he is, then he must be off duty, and you can say anything you like to him. Moreover, there is this strongly established tradition among the Ibansk intelligentsia: they are at their most open and frank with those to whom they should not be talking at all. Our problem is not in gathering evidence, but in extracting anything of value from this avalanche of words. Added to that is the difficulty that they talk and talk nineteen to the dozen, but only to come out with the same stale truisms repeated ad nauseam. And since in our business truth is only that which is novel and elicited with much effort, the study of the problem which interests us is coming up against great difficulties. To overcome these difficulties, we shall have to see that the subjects of the experiment learn to hold their tongues and hide their evil thoughts.

On foresight The laws of science are a means of observing conformity with the law in a real sense and not merely in the apparent chaos of events, wrote Schizophrenic. In its application to social mani- festations, this notion is associated with two questions: (1) What is going on? (2) What will come to pass? The former leads on to the latter. In posing this problem, the last thing we want is to hear yet again about the facts which we already know and which underlie the problem, or about similar facts. We want to know whether this will actually come to pass or not, will it get worse or not, will it ever end or not, will it spread or not, and in particular, will it affect us or not, will it affect others or not-in other words, we want to know what is going to happen. So the question of whether events conform to a law really boils down to the question whether it is possible to forecast events.

But no two forecasts are alike. It is one thing to forecast, for example, that on such and such a date such and such an aircraft will crash in such and such a place. It is impossible to predict such an event by the application of scientific laws. Indeed, if it were possible so to predict, then we must assume that people would take steps to see that it did not happen, thus making it

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even more impossible to predict. Such an event can, of course, be predicted, say, by people who have planted a bomb in the aircraft. But that is not a scientific prediction. It is quite another matter to predict, say, that the number of aircraft accidents will increase. Here we are talking not about a single empirical instance, but about a certain tendency in a complex chain of events. Now not every individual flight of an aircraft is subject to this prediction, and it is not so easy to take steps to eliminate this tendency. Social laws are also among those which make it possible to predict something of the tendencies of events en masse, and to conceive something of the future of individual events only from this standpoint. Knowledge of events enables us to work out a more or less effective orientation in the flow of the events of life, and to work out a strategy of life or at least the makings of such a strategy. The manifestation we refer to as the ability to get on in the world really amounts to a certain skill in orienting oneself in life, which is based on an intuitive and fragmentary comprehension of the social laws. The sociological theory of which I speak is merely a manifestation of intuition.

Writer

In the beginning Writer produced mediocre slanderous verses. His series Freedom-loving themes had a good deal of popularity:

Where you are not, Life is tedious and harsh,

An iron grey sky

O'er the swamp and the marsh.

But he caught himself in time and turned over a new leaf. He began to write truthful talented compositions of a high literary level. After the removal of the old Leader, Writer published his Confession of a True Artist which became the manifesto of

Ibansk prose writers of the new era: We have all made our mistakes,

Some time, some place,

And even 1, leaving the highway, I may have taken the wrong turning.

But basically I've been proved right, And count myself now every man's equal, Now, like everyone, I shall sing the praises,

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Of the role of personality. Oh, pardon me- the role of the masses.

Writer was paid a large fee, and then he was assigned the task of travelling around the world at the state's expense to preach the real truth. Recently he returned, and rang round everyone he knew and did not know. He telephoned Dauber. 'I say, old man,' he said, 'I'm dying to see you. I want to ask your advice on a matter of great importance to me.' Dauber said come round, and Writer turned up at the studio with two chicks, three lasses and four women.

'Hello, old man,' he said, and sniffed Dauber three times. I'm glad to see you. You're looking good. Well, how are things here? You've heard, of course, that I'm just back from Over There. They really live it up, those bastards. All the gear you want. Just look at me. Quite something, isn't it? And dirt cheap. You can see any film you want, write what you like. Nothing like here. They're saying over there that you're think- ing of leaving. You should have done it long ago. They want you over there. Let's see what you've been doing lately.' Writer glanced swiftly at Dauber's works, yawned, and said that he'd seen enough of that sort of stuff Over There. 'I don't under- stand what our leaders are so afraid of, whatever daft things we do. We're all so untalented. Including you. Don't get up-tight, I'm saying that as a friend. And mediocrity always comes to their support. It might give out the odd spark or two, but in the end it always sides with them. Real talent is neither pro nor anti-it just doesn't give a damn about their silly games. It's got its own affairs that concern no one else. And what's more, its friends always destroy it sooner or later. You can't imagine what happened here when I published my Poem on Duty. That band of mediocrities was ready to tear me into shreds out of sheer black envy. I had no end of trouble getting it nominated for a prize. And they won't give it me, the bastards. Sorry, old man, but I can't give you any more time. Things to do.' And, leaving behind the latest number of the Journal, Writer van- ished from the studio, along with the two chicks, the three lasses, and the four women.. 'What do you make of that?'Dauber asked Slanderer, when

Writer had gone. 'What did he come here for?' 'You know

perfectly well why,' said Slanderer, 'but if you want a formal

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scientific analysis, here it is. First, so he could tell you and anyone else who happened to be in the studio that he'd been Over There, and to parade all his finery. Secondly, to remind you that he's a success. Thirdly, to hint that no-one would object if you were to emigrate over there. And finally, to let you and anyone else around know that the last number of the Journal has a big article over Thinker's signature analysing the philosophical sense and the social significance of his Poem on Duty.

The poem on duty

The Poem on Duty created a great stir in all circles and raised Writer into the ranks of the most talented thinkers of Ibansk and its neighbouring territories. In the final version, as is well known, the poem was published in two parts:

I am proud of the midden in which I sit up to my ears.

II

I devotedly lick the leaders' arses. There were contradictory rumours that there had been other versions of the poem, that they had been rejected by the cen- sors, that the poem had only been published with massive cuts and even then only as a result of public pressure above and to the right. Thinker's bold article put an end to this tittle-tattle. Probing into Writer's creative laboratory, which Writer com- posed especially for this purpose after the publication of the Poem, Thinker was able to show convincingly that the author had undergone a prolonged creative evolution. Thinker iso- lated three stages in this evolution. In the first, civil-lyrical stage, the poem had first been conceived in this form:

I lie in bed, nude as they come, And contemplate your mighty bum.

The word 'mighty' was struck out and replaced by 'enormous', and in its turn 'enormous' was struck out and replaced by 'mighty', 'Nude as they come was stricken out and replaced by 'nuder than some'. Finally, the last line was taken out altogether, and at the conclusion of the first stage the poem appeared thus:

I lie in bed, nuder than some, And in my hands clutch your fat bum.

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Then a further line was added:

A pleasure which just strikes me dumb. But this line was crossed out in red pencil, and the author was never to return to it. The first stage lasted from January to December. In the second, civil-personality, stage running from another January to another December, the author com- posed a whole series of variant versions:

I piss the pool of pee in which I lie, And lick my own arse. What a guy am I.

I adore the arse I lick,

And shit the shit in which I sit.

I sit to my ears in my own,

And the thing that I lick is my own.

I sit. I lick.

According to Thinker, this fourth variation, however much of a paradox it may seem at first sight, leads to the final version.

The third, civil-state, stage which lasted five years after the first two stages, was a period of an agonising creative search for the best of the variations. It was only after the historic experi- ments that the author summoned up the courage of a true artist,

and chose the version he should have chosen. When Fellow-worker had read the poem, he said:

The law has always been the same,

To our days from antiquity,

The poet's mind is maimed, and lame But this one's in totality.

Ravings

Schizophrenic locked his door so that the drunken owner of the flat in which he rented a tiny room should not come bursting in, set on his knees the board which served him as a writing desk, and fell to thinking. What a good thing I'm alone, he thought. I wish that everything could remain as it is. If only for a while. I must somehow manage to communicate even one thousandth part of what I've thought, even if it's only to one person. Otherwise, what's the use? Then there came into his mind a sort of confusion, of which Instructor later said that it had come from his subconscious: typical Freudian ravings. Schizophrenic came

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first in the mathematical Olympiad. Academician himself came and shook him by the hand, remarking that he was a sloven who couldn't even square up the corners when he made his bed. Schizophrenic kept on making and remaking his bed, and all the time Academician kept on tearing it apart. On the far bank he could hear enemy officers issuing their orders. Schizo phrenic could not understand why they were shouting the pre- cise co-ordinates of their headquarters so loudly. The war was going to start tomorrow morning, and they were still on a staff exercise. The officers were being taught how to write reports about the deaths and burials of their men. The manoeuvres went on and on, and they were running out of names. Schizo phrenic invented a simple and effective method for the creation of a practically speaking unlimited number of names. Academ cian praised him, saying that he would make an officer one day But when Academician had studied Schizophrenic's method, he told Instructor that it had no scientific value. Then Schizo- phrenic began to write his treatise.

Social laws

It is widely accepted, wrote Schizophrenic, that human society is one of the most complex of manifestations, and that as a result, the study of human society is beset with unusual difficul ties. That is a delusion. In fact, from a purely cognitive point of view, society is the easiest manifestation to study, and its laws are primitive and accessible to all. If it were not so, social life would be totally impossible, since in society people live by these laws and must necessarily realise what they are. There are of course difficulties inherent in the study of society. But they are far from being of an academic nature. In order to understand society, the main thing to grasp is that it is simple in detail, and complex only in the huge accumulation of detail; one has also to resolve to speak the truth on the matter, to acknowledge the banality of one's ideas, to discount the established system prejudices, and to have the ability to give one's thoughts wide publicity. There is one difficulty of a cognitive nature. This is that of deduction is impossible owing to the excess of data, the multipli city of initial concepts and assumptions, the paucity of deducible consequences, and the practical uselessness of what is deduced.

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All this has a dispiriting effect on the modern scientist, whose mind has been stuffed full of mathematicisation, formalisation, model-making and so on. And the most primitive of the laws of society are social laws.

When we speak of social laws, we are usually referring to the state, the law, ethics, religion, ideology and other social institu- tions which govern people's behaviour and which make them coalesce into a homogeneous society. But social laws do not originally depend on such institutions and affect neither their inter-relationship nor their functioning. They lie in quite a different sector of social life. It is of absolutely no concern to them what it is that unites people in a particular society. They operate somehow or other, since over an adequate period of time people come together in sufficiently large groups. The institutions referred to above exist themselves in accordance with social laws, and not the other way round.

Social laws are the definitive rules (of actions, of conduct) determining how people behave to one another. Their basis is the historically established and constantly developing impetus of people and groups of people towards self-preservation and the improvement of their conditions of existence in a social situation. Examples of such rules are: less give and more take; less risk, more profit; less responsibility, more kudos; less dependence on others, greater dependence of others on oneself, and so on.

Social laws are clearly not fixed in the same way as the rules of morality, law and so on, for reasons which can easily be divined, and about which I will write specifically later. But despite this, they are known by all and are accessible to all. People discover them and assimilate them with striking ease. This is explained by the fact that they are natural, that they respond to the historically established nature of human beings and human groups. It needs exceptional conditions for a particular man to develop within himself an ability to depart from their authority and to act despite them. And it needs a long and bloody period of history for a group of human society to develop the ability to resist the social laws to any perceptible degree.

People learn the rules of social behaviour. They learn them on the basis of their own experience, by observing others, by their upbringing, through education and experiment, and so

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on. The rules are self-evident. People have the mental capacity to learn the rules for themselves, and society offers enormous opportunities to put them into practice. In most cases people are not even aware of the fact that they are going through a systematic training for their role as social individuals as they carry out what they consider to be entirely normal day-to-day activities. Inevitably so, for if they do not learn the rules of society, they are incapable of living.

Although the rules of society are natural in that they corres- pond to the nature of man, people prefer to keep silent about them or even to conceal them (in the same way that they hide dirty linen or lock themselves in the lavatory as they perform their natural functions). Why is this? Because society has progressed largely by inventing devices which limit or regulate the action of social laws. Morality, law, art, religion, the press, publicity, advertising, public opinion and so on, have in great measure (although not of course entirely) been invented as such devices. And while all these, as they have developed into mas- sive organisations, have themselves been influenced by the rules of society, they have in various ways fulfilled and (where they exist) fulfil an anti-social role. The social progress of society has been by and large an anti-social progress. For cen- turies people have been taught to channel their conduct in forms acceptable from the point of view of morality, of religion, of law, of tradition and so on, or to conceal their behaviour from outside observation as something reprehensible. And it is hardly surprising if the rules of social behaviour seem to them to be improper if not actually criminal. Moreover, individually people develop in such a way that they regard social rules merely as possibilities which might just as well not exist. If a man behaves according to these rules and recognises the fact, then very frequently he experiences psychological conflicts and doubts; he experiences what is happening as a spiritual drama. Examples of people who have demonstrated their ability to defy social laws and who have as a result become objects of the greatest veneration corroborate the idea that these laws are repugnant, or, more precisely, that they are not laws at all, but something unlawful. Finally, examples of societies in which rcial laws, by virtue of the authority of morality, religion, the code of law, public opinion and so on, have acquired a terrifying

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role, tend ultimately to embroil the real situation and erect an

insurmountable barrier to truth-a striking example of the evil

created by men from the best motives. Incidentally, the best

motives as a rule provide cover for the most repulsive people. Social laws are always visible, and in this field it is useless to expect discoveries like the discovery of micro-particles, chromosomes and so on. In this context the only discovery can be to establish what is visible and well known in a certain system of concepts and assertions, and to demonstrate how such trivialities can fulfil the role of laws which govern human existence, and how our social life is directed not by benevolent titans but by vile nonentities. Herein lies the basic difficulty in understanding social life.

When, nevertheless, people talk about given social laws, they usually deprive them of the status of general human laws and regard them as inhuman laws of some 'ism' or other. It is supposed by that that in another, better 'ism' there would be no place for them. But that is erroneous. First, there is absolutely nothing in human about them. They are simply what they are. They are in no way more in human than the laws of companion- ship, of mutual help, of respect, and so on. The contrasting of the conception of evil and good social laws has, from the scien- tific point of view, absolutely no sense at all, since they are merely mirror images one of another, isomorphous in structure and equivalent in their consequences. Let us, for example, take the principle of the conception of bad social laws: 'Every man A tries to undermine the social positions of another man B' (all other conditions being constant). Equivalent to this is the prin- ciple of the conception of good social laws: 'Every man B tries to bolster the social positions of another man A'. Only on condi- tion that the concepts are mixed can this effect be avoided. But here mixed concepts exclude the possibility of a scientific approach and the construction of a theory. In other words if we take a concept according to which evil is inevitable and good accidental, or the opposite concept whereby good is inevitable and evil accidental, by this we do not resolve the question as to which occurs more frequently, good or evil, and the concepts in question do not of themselves explain either the one thing or the other, which means that they may be equally well used to demonstrate either.

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And, secondly, a humane or inhuman 'ism' is formed in a given country, and depends not on the social laws as such, but on the complex coincidence of historical circumstances, includ- ing whether or not the people of the said country have the ability to develop institutions opposed to the social laws- (moral principles, legal institutions, public opinion, publicity, press, opposition parties and so on). Only in cases where nothing of this kind exists, or where it has reached only an early stage of development, can the social laws acquire great strength and determine the entire physiognomy of the society, including the capacity to define the nature of the organisations intended to protect people from such laws. And then a special kind of society is brought into being, in which hypocrisy, oppression, corruption, waste, irresponsibility (individual and collective), shoddy work, boorishness, idleness, disinformation, deceitful- ness, drabness, bureaucratic privilege, all flourish. These societies betray a distorted evaluation of personality-nonen- tities are elevated to great heights, exceptional people are debased. The most moral citizens are subjected to persecution, the most talented and efficient are reduced to the lowest com- mon denominator of mediocrity and muddle. It is not necessa- rily the authorities who achieve this. A person's own colleagues, friends, work-mates and neighbours bend all their efforts to deny a man of talent the possibility of developing his own individuality, or an industrious man the chance of advance- ment. All this takes on a universal character embracing every sphere of activity, and particularly the spheres of government and of creative activity. Society is threatened with being turned into a barracks. This threat determines the psychological state of the citizens, Boredom and anxiety prevail, and a constant fear of worse to come. A society of this kind is condemned to stagnation and to a chronic putrefaction if it cannot find within itself the strength to resist these tendencies. And this condition can last for centuries. I know a ninety-year-old man who suffers from tuberculosis and an ulcer: he cannot be called a healthy man on the grounds that he has reached the age of ninety and scen all his vigorous contemporaries into their graves. And if I am to die without having reached even half the age of that old man, I shall still not envy him.

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Sociologist's opinion When he had read this extract from Schizophrenic's manu- script, Sociologist said to Dauber that Schizophrenic would get into really hot water for it. 'Whatever for?' asked Dauber in surprise. 'What do you mean, what for?' replied Sociologist, no less surprised. "This is all about us and our society." "There isn't a word here that says it's all about us,' observed Dauber. 'Our bosses are no fools,' said Sociologist. 'Hypocrisy, oppression, disinformation, waste and so on-a babe in arms would recog- nise who all that's about.' And Sociologist told a story of a man who shouted 'Arrogant blockhead!' and was arrested for insult- ing the Leader, even though he protested that it was his work- mate he had in mind. 'Come off it-you and your work-mate!' he was told; 'everyone knows who the arrogant blockhead must be.' 'But that's not legal,' cried Dauber, 'to charge a man with slandering us, just because someone decided that his words could be applied to us.' 'What's legality got to do with it?" exclaimed Sociologist. 'I'm talking about an established system of evaluation which provides the raw material for legality. This manuscript will be assessed by an expert. And only a man who will produce the desired conclusion will be nominated as an expert. A lawyer? He's not a specialist, and can't be an expert in this sort of case. Another expert? Name me one. I know by heart the name of every single person who has the right to be an expert in this kind of matter.' 'What about you?' asked Dauber. 'I'm his best hope,' said Sociologist. 'But what can I do? And what's more I want to stay out of it. The work isn't so strong in the scientific sense that it's worth going to the scaffold over. And as the basis for a denunciation it's nothing compared to what we already know.' 'Slanderer thinks,' said Dauber, 'that Schizophrenic is a genius.' 'Certainly,' said Sociologist, 'he has an idea or two. But there are plenty of people who are thought of as geniuses ... But we've got our own criteria to go by."

Deviations from the norm I have read your treatise,' Member said to Schizophrenic, 'and I cannot agree with you on a whole number of points. For example, what you have to say about the role of the state. Have you read today's papers? No? Well, they prove my point. They've discovered a bunch of bribe-takers and condemned

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them. One of them was a professor, another a university lec turer. The others were all in the same line of business. As you can see, we're not afraid of exposing such matters. So you see, young man, that the main question for us isn't the presence of shortcomings-everyone's got faults-but the struggle against them by the forces of the state.' 'But did the papers mention that the biggest crook was the director of their ideologically top-grade establishment?' put in Chatterer. 'And his chief henchman was head of the Department of Ethics, incidentally. And they didn't mention the fact that not long ago the entire local government of a district was pulled in on far graver charges than mere penny bribes such as they're writing about here. And have you heard about the case of the lawyers? No? Pity!' 'How do you know all this?' asked Member. 'All Ibansk knows about it,' said Chatterer. 'But there haven't been any reports about it,' said Member. 'Does that mean that it never happened?' asked Chatterer. 'And do you know what happened to the main crooks in the affair you know about and which therefore actually happened? They were let off with a warning and a slight demotion. They didn't even have their villas confis- cated.' 'These facts must be checked,' said Member, 'and steps taken.' 'Just you try,' said Chatterer, 'and see what'll happen to you. We're concerned with a more serious matter than central heating radiators that don't heat, or minor fiddling with the apple crop.'

It's silly to deny that the state fights against breaches of the law,' said Schizophrenic. 'But I want to draw your attention to the purely social aspect of the state's activity. Let's examine a case like this. The administrative manager of an enterprise you know well acquired power vastly greater than that of the manag- ing director. He handled all matters relating to apartments, villas, motor cars, salaries and so on. And he took bribes on such a scale that in comparison these heroes in the papers are mere third-rate fiddlers. Now, do you think that no-one knew about all this? Everybody knew. But that didn't matter. Tacit kaowledge is one thing, formal acknowledgement something quite different. What was going on suited the people at the top, and the people at the bottom kept quiet either out of fear or in the hope of a percentage. Anyway, when the manager finally reached himself, and there was a threat of scandal, he was

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actually taken in hand. But how? They rapped him gently over the knuckles, warned him, reproved him. He trimmed his appetite a little. The state fights faults all right, but not in the name of any high idealism-it does the least it can get away with, and then only if it has something to gain. In doing so the state acts fully in accordance with social laws, as an organ of social justice, and not as a protection for the oppressed and the injured. It's worth noting here that (apart from the fact of the state itself being a collection of social individuals), different social laws have mutually opposing consequences. The man- ager I was talking about was trying, in accordance with one social law, to get as much as he could for himself out of his position and, as a result, was strengthening his position as much as he could. The other officials, according to different social laws, were seeing to it that his real position (in terms of wealth and power, in the first instance) should not too far exceed his official position. The combined effect of differing social laws is a tendency towards a middle-of-the-road position. Social law is the result, and also the means of this tendency towards the middle. As far as degrees of punishment are concerned, they, as everyone knows, are determined by the social position of the person being punished (with the rare exception of a totally extreme situation).' 'I wholly agree with you,' said Chatterer. 'I can add just one further thought which might be useful for Member. In our country there are not and cannot be any shortcomings. And those shortcomings which are sometimes acknowledged to exist here are so rare and unusual a deviation from our healthy fault-free norm that to all intents and purposes they do not and cannot exist, and they are therefore openly combated with the very aim of showing everyone that to all intents and purposes they cannot and do not exist.' Member said that he would certainly establish whether the facts mentioned above were true, and would see that justice was done. When Member had gone, Chatterer said to Schizophrenic that Member was a striking example of an individual completely incapable of understanding a general rule in specific events. Schizophrenic said that according to his observations, people everywhere lacked an intuitive feeling for legality, and its place within them was filled with a banal capacity for simple general- isations. It is easy to generalise. But it is just as easy to refute a

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✨💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨ — Yesterday at 23:09 @Kitty Zelda (Joy) what do you think of these 15 pages? I'm thinking I'll try to get 15 pages on this chanel every day at a time if that's okay with you 😊

✨💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨ — Yesterday at 23:25 Claimant, Sociologist, and Wife are all so petty with each other, yeesh! Also the way wife is treated is pretty upsetting, at least Zinoviev seems to understand the issue. @Kitty Zelda (Joy) is an ikon like currency or is thinker literally trading Russian orthadox ikons for sex?

✨💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨ — Yesterday at 23:32 "womanizer, homosexual, lesbian" goes so hard

✨💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨ — Yesterday at 23:41 "the difficulty that they talk and talk nineteen to the dozen, but only to come out with the same stale truisms repeated ad nauseam. "

Ok so Ibansk intelligentsia are serving Twitter cunt ✨

✨💖mew(^◕ᴥ◕^)💖✨ — Today at 01:08 I went over the dinner scene in my head over and over while rereading the scene and trying to get a grip on it. Like all of Zinoviev's work, it comes off to me like fractal of critique you can fall into and get lost in, and this fractal bounced and repeated in an intricate display of politics, power, and ambition as it existed in the Breazhnev era.

The scene itself focuses meticulously on the social hierarchies and how people claw their way up them through backstabbing, gossip, and treating all their relationships as little more than leverage in a game of academic dick measuring common among the intelligentsia Brezhnev's USSR.

Ideology and societal structure are in a state of tension, as the academics seem to be caught in the crosshairs of this tension. Between bureaucracy and revolution, between the intellectual and the carnal.

The most interesting part to me. The gender dynamics at play. The portrayal of Wife is a good window into the roles and expectations of women in that time. How she struggles to be heard despite her accomplishments and instead had to use her sex appeal as leverage, and how she's immediately compared to other women to assess their sexual usefulness to men in power with no other considerations of consequence.