This is the latest of Dick Berk’s letters from America explaining to British fascists why the Democrats are the obvious party of choice for the US electorate. You can read his previous letters here.
I HEAR that most Britons and Americans are worried about the current breakdown of law, order, manners, and social distancing. But I am here to tell you that these are good signs! Our most disruptive changes are evidence for how much you must change.
I should know, because I am an academic. I am not just any academic, but the leader of the most enlightened university in the world. You might not know me, but that just proves you’re ignorant. So, you should read on, because this is for your own good. Don’t worry that you might not understand me: I’ll dumb this down.
You see: every time you hear an academic saying something you don’t understand, you should realize your own ignorance. Then you should educate yourself, by enrolling at my university, or one just as enlightened. You owe it to yourself, and to society. These are desperate times: and the times are urgent. Ignorant people like you are destroying this planet with your racism, greenhouse gases, and populism. The world will end tomorrow, unless we deconstruct everything today.
First, let me explain why I know best. I am Chancellor of the University of Sunshine Bayside, in the great State of Sunshine. That’s in America. And Bayside means we’re on the coast, not just any coast, but the left coast, so we’re on the right side of America, that is: the left. Left is best.
The symbol of the University of Sunshine Bayside is the Golden Sun, which symbolizes the sun, when it is golden. The Golden Sun is a cooling, healing sun for those who have strayed too far in the real world.
I am enlightened enough to know that everyone is equal, except the unenlightened. If you’re ignorant, that’s not your fault: you’re just uneducated. But if you resist education, the right sort of education (remember: right is left), then you’re at fault, and you deserve to be cancelled.
At this point you might be remembering some mischievous nonsense about free speech, but free speech is just cover for the wrong sort of speech, so stop it.
Also, you might have heard that cancel culture is authoritarian. But cancelling wrong is right!
You might think that what I am saying seems too black and white, but then you would be racist, so stop that too.
Of course, I understand that when you are told what to do you might feel defensive. But remember: I know what’s good for you, because I’m more educated. If I sound unsympathetic, you couldn’t be more wrong. Nobody could be more worried than me about the ignorant: that’s why I am speaking to you.
I think of the ignorant often, and my heart bleeds. The ignorant cannot see anything outside the dazzle of a competing sun. Sure, they feel warmed for a while, dazzled by brightness, pulled by mass, but inevitably its vicious core loses its restraint, until, wham – a solar flare reaches out. They might as well be enjoying the warming tingle inside a microwave with a broken timer, or swimming in a pool pleasantly heated by spent fuel rods, or admiring the mushroom cloud between the flash and the blast.
Of course, a galaxy with only one sun is natural, but who wants natural? Progress is unnatural! Progress demands an extra sun, an artificial sun, a better sun. History is clear on the future: civilization is a struggle between the hot power we inherit and the cool enlightenment we create. And the future is cool.
That’s why so many university chancellors are historians. We realize how awful the past is, then we realize how much the present must change.
That’s why I have stuck with a public university, even though I could have done better. Other universities are richer, but mine is the coolest. A public university is enlightened, because its private interests can be hidden. That’s why my university is ranked as the greatest public university. My university doesn’t accept any money from governments, corporations, or private individuals, except big tech, movie moguls, unelected administrators of the federal government, China, and the politicians I endorse.
I thank myself that I have reached that step in my career when my opinion matters most. I am determined to write a book on leadership, once I have enough time away from leading to think about how to lead.
But one man can only do so much. (I know the correct term is ‘person without vagina,’ but I am speaking down to your level.) My consensus doesn’t extend much beyond the rest of the global academic community, social media, journalism, most of the judiciary, and most politicians. I hear that even the members of your imperialist Parliament are on our side, most of them (I really don’t understand why the Conservative Party sticks with that awful name).
While almost everybody in charge gets it, too many of you voters don’t. If more than 50 per cent of you vote the wrong way, that would be terrible for democracy. We want government to be popular, not populist.
If you’re still struggling with what I have told you, please just try to remember this: If you’re not progressing, you’re regressing. And if you still struggle to remember a sentence, try to remember the image of the Golden Sun, because it might remind you that the only acceptable darkness is skin deep.
