Agent Smith
09-19-2007, 11:05 PM
so i think this exchange from Shaw's Heartbreak House pretty much sums up how i've been feeling for a few years now.
i'll preface it by saying that gorillas may become extinct very shortly.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That sort of strength is no good. You will
never be as strong as a gorilla.
HECTOR. What is the dynamite for?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. To kill fellows like Mangan.
HECTOR. No use. They will always be able to buy more dynamite
than you.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I will make a dynamite that he cannot explode.
HECTOR. And that you can, eh?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Yes: when I have attained the seventh degree of
concentration.
HECTOR. What's the use of that? You never do attain it.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What then is to be done? Are we to be kept
forever in the mud by these hogs to whom the universe is nothing
but a machine for greasing their bristles and filling their
snouts?
HECTOR. Are Mangan's bristles worse than Randall's lovelocks?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER,. We must win powers of life and death over them
both. I refuse to die until I have invented the means.
HECTOR. Who are we that we should judge them?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What are they that they should judge us? Yet
they do, unhesitatingly. There is enmity between our seed and
their seed. They know it and act on it, strangling our souls.
They believe in themselves. When we believe in ourselves, we
shall kill them.
HECTOR. It is the same seed. You forget that your pirate has a
very nice daughter. Mangan's son may be a Plato: Randall's a
Shelley. What was my father?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The damnedst scoundrel I ever met. [He replaces
the drawing-board; sits down at the table; and begins to mix a
wash of color].
HECTOR. Precisely. Well, dare you kill his innocent
grandchildren?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. They are mine also.
HECTOR. Just so--we are members one of another. [He throws
himself carelessly on the sofa]. I tell you I have often thought
of this killing of human vermin. Many men have thought of it.
Decent men are like Daniel in the lion's den: their survival is a
miracle; and they do not always survive. We live among the
Mangans and Randalls and Billie Dunns as they, poor devils, live
among the disease germs and the doctors and the lawyers and the
parsons and the restaurant chefs and the tradesmen and the
servants and all the rest of the parasites and blackmailers. What
are our terrors to theirs? Give me the power to kill them; and
I'll spare them in sheer--
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [cutting in sharply]. Fellow feeling?
HECTOR. No. I should kill myself if I believed that. I must
believe that my spark, small as it is, is divine, and that the
red light over their door is hell fire. I should spare them in
simple magnanimous pity.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You can't spare them until you have the power
to kill them. At present they have the power to kill you. There
are millions of blacks over the water for them to train and let
loose on us. They're going to do it. They're doing it already.
HECTOR. They are too stupid to use their power.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [throwing down his brush and coming to the end
of the sofa]. Do not deceive yourself: they do use it. We kill
the better half of ourselves every day to propitiate them. The
knowledge that these people are there to render all our
aspirations barren prevents us having the aspirations. And when
we are tempted to seek their destruction they bring forth demons
to delude us, disguised as pretty daughters, and singers and
poets and the like, for whose sake we spare them.
HECTOR [sitting up and leaning towards him]. May not Hesione be
such a demon, brought forth by you lest I should slay you?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That is possible. She has used you up, and left
you nothing but dreams, as some women do.
HECTOR. Vampire women, demon women.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Men think the world well lost for them, and
lose it accordingly. Who are the men that do things? The husbands
of the shrew and of the drunkard, the men with the thorn in the
flesh. [Walking distractedly away towards the pantry]. I must
think these things out. [Turning suddenly]. But I go on with the
dynamite none the less. I will discover a ray mightier than any
X-ray: a mind ray that will explode the ammunition in the belt of
my adversary before he can point his gun at me. And I must hurry.
I am old: I have no time to waste in talk [he is about to go into
the pantry, and Hector is making for the hall, when Hesione comes
back].
i'll preface it by saying that gorillas may become extinct very shortly.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That sort of strength is no good. You will
never be as strong as a gorilla.
HECTOR. What is the dynamite for?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. To kill fellows like Mangan.
HECTOR. No use. They will always be able to buy more dynamite
than you.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I will make a dynamite that he cannot explode.
HECTOR. And that you can, eh?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Yes: when I have attained the seventh degree of
concentration.
HECTOR. What's the use of that? You never do attain it.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What then is to be done? Are we to be kept
forever in the mud by these hogs to whom the universe is nothing
but a machine for greasing their bristles and filling their
snouts?
HECTOR. Are Mangan's bristles worse than Randall's lovelocks?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER,. We must win powers of life and death over them
both. I refuse to die until I have invented the means.
HECTOR. Who are we that we should judge them?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What are they that they should judge us? Yet
they do, unhesitatingly. There is enmity between our seed and
their seed. They know it and act on it, strangling our souls.
They believe in themselves. When we believe in ourselves, we
shall kill them.
HECTOR. It is the same seed. You forget that your pirate has a
very nice daughter. Mangan's son may be a Plato: Randall's a
Shelley. What was my father?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The damnedst scoundrel I ever met. [He replaces
the drawing-board; sits down at the table; and begins to mix a
wash of color].
HECTOR. Precisely. Well, dare you kill his innocent
grandchildren?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. They are mine also.
HECTOR. Just so--we are members one of another. [He throws
himself carelessly on the sofa]. I tell you I have often thought
of this killing of human vermin. Many men have thought of it.
Decent men are like Daniel in the lion's den: their survival is a
miracle; and they do not always survive. We live among the
Mangans and Randalls and Billie Dunns as they, poor devils, live
among the disease germs and the doctors and the lawyers and the
parsons and the restaurant chefs and the tradesmen and the
servants and all the rest of the parasites and blackmailers. What
are our terrors to theirs? Give me the power to kill them; and
I'll spare them in sheer--
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [cutting in sharply]. Fellow feeling?
HECTOR. No. I should kill myself if I believed that. I must
believe that my spark, small as it is, is divine, and that the
red light over their door is hell fire. I should spare them in
simple magnanimous pity.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You can't spare them until you have the power
to kill them. At present they have the power to kill you. There
are millions of blacks over the water for them to train and let
loose on us. They're going to do it. They're doing it already.
HECTOR. They are too stupid to use their power.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [throwing down his brush and coming to the end
of the sofa]. Do not deceive yourself: they do use it. We kill
the better half of ourselves every day to propitiate them. The
knowledge that these people are there to render all our
aspirations barren prevents us having the aspirations. And when
we are tempted to seek their destruction they bring forth demons
to delude us, disguised as pretty daughters, and singers and
poets and the like, for whose sake we spare them.
HECTOR [sitting up and leaning towards him]. May not Hesione be
such a demon, brought forth by you lest I should slay you?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That is possible. She has used you up, and left
you nothing but dreams, as some women do.
HECTOR. Vampire women, demon women.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Men think the world well lost for them, and
lose it accordingly. Who are the men that do things? The husbands
of the shrew and of the drunkard, the men with the thorn in the
flesh. [Walking distractedly away towards the pantry]. I must
think these things out. [Turning suddenly]. But I go on with the
dynamite none the less. I will discover a ray mightier than any
X-ray: a mind ray that will explode the ammunition in the belt of
my adversary before he can point his gun at me. And I must hurry.
I am old: I have no time to waste in talk [he is about to go into
the pantry, and Hector is making for the hall, when Hesione comes
back].