(American Society And I Have A Little Talk)
- Introduce yourself.
- I am American Society.
- And who am I?
- Someone with a complaint. You know, I can't talk about these things.
- Just pretend. You can lie, right?
- Do it all the time. It works.
- And working is what you're about. I want to talk about your work.
- What's the problem?
- I grew up with you in a time when to try to live without compromise and learn how to do something creative very, very well was risky but not life threatening. Dangerous, but not life or death. I could tell you, American society, to go to hell and you would just smile and say, well, I guess you don't want all these nice things I got together just for you. No problem. I have other takers. That's what you said then.
- Have I changed?
- You've been trying to kill me for the past five years. I've been surviving on miracles. Arriving not immediately when required. Only eventually.
- You're angry at me.
- You're the one who's angry. You pretend to be cold and calculating, caring only about work. The truth is you get extremely angry when someone gets in the way of your work.
- But I perform miracles too, you said.
- Who said they were your miracles? You're not the only world around. There's you, American Society. You are public life. And there's private life. In private life people care about each other. Relations between people other than money have no place in your world. In your world, everything goes on fairly well. You try to explain a little what's going on, not accurately, not honestly. The important thing is that not too many people kill each other. Life works. You work.
- And what's wrong with that?
- You broke the deal! I was to be allowed to make things as good or better than anyone else, and yes, you wouldn't give me pretty things in return, but you wouldn't try to kill me either. You're no good.
- Good? That's something in that other world of yours, private life. I don't have anything to do with that. I'm not good. I work. I am as I am.
- The words of god. Do you think you are god?
- I don't like to talk about myself. I don't want to have to lie, but it's not efficient for me to always do as I say. What can I do? I am as I am. And my world contains miracles.
- No thanks to you. You can't perform miracles. Miracles interrupt the rules and you are about efficiency, rule following. I said that for the past five years miracles happened. That's why I'm still here. The miracles come out of the other world of private life. It also has its gods. It's not your territory, but sometimes you are there too.
- I don't recall.
- You lie to yourself. You are not supposed to be there. The two worlds of relations between people based on money and of relations between people of every other kind are not supposed to be mixed. That was the deal. When you show yourself in private life you end private life. But when private life enters public life, enters your world, that's the definition of miracle. It shouldn't happen, because in your world the more people care about each other the less efficient they become and it is imperative they be efficient.
- Or they'll become like you. I agree it is a miracle someone gives someone like you money.
- You refer to charity. In charity the two worlds don't mix. There's no miracle. The good deed has its rewards in the pubic world, feeds the giver's confidence of power over others and is thought to translate into more efficiency in trading. It is a public act in the public world. Charity is not a personal relation. Giving money you don't care about the person you give money to. You don't share your life.
- I'm not supposed to visit you in your personal life. Well, I do. And what about you? What are you doing with your private miracles in my public world?
- I'm not the one who broke the deal. And you were always going to break it. With no idea of good in your world there is no reason for you to keep yourself out of the other when you can do your work there.
