SIX THINKERS SPEAKING TO SIX LISTENERS

WHO IN TURN THINK ABOUT THEIR SPEECHES

"I've gradually come to the conclusion that rock is the European and, in particular, British equivalent of jazz, the nearest most European musicians ever get, or desire to go, to what is, after all, America's principal form of music. However, unlike jazz, rock is an atomic music, whereby a bound-electron equivalent, viz. melody and/or harmony, is harnessed to a proton equivalent which, as a persistent beat mainly issuing from the drums, tends to impose or maintain a rhythmic bias on the music overall, thereby making for a proton-biased atomicity. Unlike pop, rock is fundamentally a petty-bourgeois art form and one, moreover, with a high regard for vocals, whether in a supporting or, more usually, a lead role. Generally these vocals, which pertain to the neutron aspect of its overall atomic integrity, will be dedicated to romantic concerns, sometimes of a reverential nature, more often of a rebellious one, as might be expected from a proton-dominated atomicity in which there is both a straining at the proton leash, as it were, and a simultaneous hint of complicity, partly expressed in the instrumental solos, with this negative atomicity.

"Rock can, however, extend in two directions - either down towards a classical bias or up towards a bias for jazz. In the one case we get rock-classical, with its strong melodic and rhythmic integrity, whilst in the other case we get jazz-rock which, though still melodic and highly rhythmic, shows greater respect for improvisation and, thus, intermittent solos from whichever lead instrument. At best, such jazz-rock becomes a pseudo-electron equivalent in relation to modern jazz.

"As for jazz itself, that relatively post-atomic music which I tend to equate with a free-electron equivalent, it is unquestionably the highest music of the age, somewhat on the level of American light art rather than, as with rock, closer to European avant-garde painting. If a political analogy can be drawn, then one could contend that, in modern jazz, a Republican equivalent, viz. the free-electron soloist, 'does his thing' to the deferential accompaniment of a Democratic equivalent, viz. the pseudo-electron percussionist, their co-existence and mutual co-operation confirming the relatively post-atomic nature of mainstream bourgeois/proletarian civilization. Indeed, one could extend the analogy by contending that the soloist is akin to a liberated male and the percussionist to a liberated female, their relationship mirroring the 'free sex' of a typical unmarried couple.

"However, not wishing to get bogged down in such analogies, I should add that, while modern jazz is the highest type of contemporary music, there also exists a tendency for certain jazzmen to extend their musical commitments down towards rock and so produce rock-jazz, which, as the American equivalent of jazz-rock, can alternatively be termed 'fusion', to distinguish it from 'progressive', the European extension of rock towards jazz. Such 'fusion music', it need scarcely be emphasized, will be less free than modern jazz, since more given to vocals and/or melody, harmony, and a monotonously persistent beat. By comparison with modern jazz, it will be a pseudo-electron music and will approximate, in some sense, to rock. There is, of course, a co-existence of jazz with rock in contemporary America, just as rock co-exists with jazz in contemporary Europe. But, in each case, rock is as much unrepresentative of American music as jazz of the European scene. American rock musicians are no less an exception to the rule than European jazzmen."

I like the way the first speaker distinguishes between rock and 'progressive' on the one hand, and ... jazz and 'fusion' on the other - a distinction, in effect, between the European - in particular British - tradition and the American one, which is regarded by him as pertaining to a different integrity - namely a relatively post-atomic integrity rather than, as with Britain, an essentially atomic one. Thus rock, a proton-biased art form, stands to 'progressive', its bound-electron alternative, somewhat in the order of the Labour Party to the Conservatives in modern Britain, whereas modern jazz, corresponding to a free-electron equivalent, stands to 'fusion', that pseudo-electron development, somewhat in the order of the Republican party to the Democrats in America. Certainly an interesting theory, if a little rigid overall! One cannot deny that many 'progressive' musicians in Europe have relapsed, as it were, into rock in recent years, just as many modern jazzmen in America have shown a growing predilection for 'fusion'. One could speak of 'progressive' as instrumental rock and 'fusion', by contrast, as vocal jazz, which is a distinction, ironically, the speaker failed to make. Neither did he allude to the fact that in Britain, for instance, musicians can start out 'progressive' and subsequently relapse, so to speak, into rock. One got the impression that they all started out in rock and progressed to jazz-rock. Conversely, he made no mention of the fact that American musicians sometimes start out in 'fusion' and later progress to modern jazz. Probably these two situations are the exception to the rule however, and he therefore felt they weren't worth mentioning. Certainly he considered American rock and British jazz to be exceptions within their respective cultural traditions, and I have to agree with him. Needless to say, American rock musicians sometimes play 'progressive', much as British and European jazz musicians sometimes relapse into 'fusion'. More often, though, I think the two kinds of musicians are quite separate, since the transformation from the one to the other, from rock to jazz-rock or vice versa, would be equivalent to a change of political allegiance, and such a change is certainly the exception to the rule, particularly in class-bound Britain! So one can conclude, then, that American rock musicians are Europeanized Americans, British jazz musicians Americanized Europeans, their respective status akin to that of cultural outsiders in each tradition - the American one centred in jazz, the British/European one, by contrast, in rock.

*

"It would be out of the question for quasi-supermen to dress in furs in a transcendental civilization since, unlike liberated females, they will be considered a masculine phenomenon, not be discriminated against as women. Besides, furs are so naturalistic, so damn pagan! They make their wearers look like animals, albeit sophisticated and attractive ones. Certainly quasi-supermen will not be partial to furs, nor to stockings, skirts, dresses, high-heels, necklaces, et cetera. Nothing that could be considered feminine would be worn by them.

"Ah, how I look forward to such a post-sexist age! How refreshingly different it would be from the usual dichotomies of an open society! There would be nothing stemming from the Diabolic Alpha in that closed society of the future; for it would signify an exclusive aspiration towards the Divine Omega. Consequently there would be no furs and no ... oh, what a long list one could draw up here! There wouldn't even be any anti-naturalism. For the natural world would have been superseded by the artificial, which would serve as a base from which to launch a truly supernatural aspiration, from which the cultivation of pure spirit would proceed as never before! Yes, instead of a proton/electron antagonism, as in open societies, one would find a pseudo-electron/free-electron co-operation, the artificial being put to the service of the supernatural, or supermen."

I used to like furs on women as a youth, because they appeared to denote class and affluence, but these days I think I would be more inclined to sympathize with the second speaker's viewpoint. He made no mention, curiously, of the moral dimension accruing to the acquisition of fur from various animals - foxes, bears, weasels, etc. - and I can only suppose this subject doesn't particularly interest him, else he would surely have alluded to it. However, one can't argue with the assertion that fur coats would be irrelevant to quasi-supermen, those civilized proletarian women of the future, since a post-sexist society could not countenance such feminine attire, especially when one bears in mind the degree of its naturalness, about which, curiously, he said scarcely a word! Though I suspect the likening of wearers of fur coats to animals, the fact that they remind one of bears and things, was intended to imply as much! No doubt, furs on women are only relevant to an alpha-stemming society, and we need not be surprised by the fact that the majority of fur wearers are bourgeois types. I liked his distinction between the anti-natural and the artificial, the former being against the natural while the latter is pro-supernatural, a base, as it were, from which to launch a truly supernatural aspiration. Anti-naturalism would seem to accord more with atomic societies, since effectively a bound-electron equivalent, whereas the artificial, functioning as a pseudo-electron equivalent, seems to accord with post-atomic societies, including the contemporary American. He lives, it seems to me, for the future development of an absolutely post-atomic civilization, as germane to an omega-orientated society.

*

"Spectra of evolutionary development in the arts - such a fascinating idea! Proton philosophers, atomic novelists, electron poets. Then philosophers who rebel against academic philosophy, becoming anti-philosophers, pseudo-electron equivalents. They rebel as petty bourgeois against bourgeois philosophy, with its ethical focus: Schopenhauer against Kant, Nietzsche against Schopenhauer, even, in some sense, Marx against Hegel. They prefer a metaphysical to a physical line, essence to appearance. They co-exist with petty-bourgeois academic philosophy, which signifies the upgrading of appearances from the humanistic to the artificial, ethics to language, as with Wittgenstein. But they extend beyond this extreme reach of philosophy, undergoing, in the process, a transformation from negative to positive, from anti-philosophy to pro-poetry. They become, in the course of time, pseudo-philosophers, bringing metaphysical philosophy to its culmination in a collectivized format, a petty-bourgeois level less stemming from the bourgeoisie, as with academic philosophy and its anti-academic antagonist, than aspiring towards the proletariat on the highest terms, that's to say, in a pseudo-electron context of metaphysical expression, free from the aphoristic root.

"Yet why stop at philosophy? Doesn't literature, in the strictly novelistic sense of that word, likewise undergo a parting of the ways and thus witness a petty-bourgeois rebellion against its fictional heritage? Yes, most assuredly! This rebellion takes the form of a turning against the fictional on autobiographical terms, is championed by anti-novelists who, like Henry Miller, prefer to tell the story of their lives than to create silly and possibly inconsequential fictions. Whereas the anti-philosophical development was predominantly a European and, in particular, German phenomenon, the development of anti-literature finds most of its support in America, almost as if it signified a turning against the European tradition, even as affecting American literature. And like its philosophical counterpart, it co-exists with the end of the bourgeois fictional tradition and the transformation of such a tradition into a uniquely illusory or, rather, illusional guise - co-exists, in other words, with the continuation of literature along petty-bourgeois lines.

"But just as we can note a distinction between anti-philosophy and its pseudo-philosophical successor, so a distinction soon becomes apparent between anti-literature and its successor in pseudo-literature - the higher, experimental, non-expressive literature of a later and superior phase of petty-bourgeois evolution, such as largely pertains to the mainstream contemporary civilization of America, and which outstrips the illusional tradition stemming from bourgeois fiction. This higher literature, championed by pseudo-novelists like William Burroughs, aspires towards a proletarian absolutism, brings literature the closest it has ever been to pure poetry while yet still remaining prose. This pseudo-electron literature of the later petty-bourgeoisie parallels the pseudo-philosophy of the metaphysical collectivist and finds its aesthetic equivalent not in abstract sculpture, as with the pseudo-philosophical, but in the furthest reach of abstract art, particularly with regard to abstract expressionism.

"That leaves, then, the progression of poetry from a traditional pseudo-poetical bound-electron status, such as continues to apply wherever poetry is conceived in expressively materialist or descriptive terms, to a revolutionary free-electron status via the rebellion of anti-poets who, like Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, turned against the pseudo-poetical tradition appertaining, in the main, to Western Europe, with its emphasis on appearance and description, and did so, needless to say, on largely autobiographical and/or occult terms.

"Such a rebellion, however, was soon to bear revolutionary fruit as the emphasis changed to metaphysics, with the development of a pure poetry along relatively free-electron lines, a poetry which alternated between metaphysical expression and poetical impression, as relevant to the extreme relativity of late twentieth-century America, and which was championed by poets such as Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso, who pertain to the later phase of petty-bourgeois culture. After such pure poetry, the literary equivalent of light art, the evolution of poetry can only be from the relatively pure to the absolutely pure, as achieved through an exclusive concern with the impressive, with pure impression, a development which should pertain to the next and final civilization in the history of man, which, as a proletarian phenomenon, will avail itself of computer discs."

I like the way he speaks of a progression from the 'anti' to the 'pseudo', from anti-philosophy to pseudo-philosophy, anti-literature to pseudo-literature, anti-poetry to pseudo- or, rather, pure poetry, moving all the time from what he considers to be the proton roots of literature to its future climax in the most free-electron terms. Very systematic thinking indeed! He doubtless despises academic philosophers, considering that, to him, they are more often than not proton types who pertain to an aristocratic stage and manifestation of literary development.... Though I'm not convinced, myself, that philosophy is as bad, or alpha-stemming, as he chooses to depict it! The rebellion against bourgeois Kantian philosophy seems, not altogether surprisingly, to have begun in Germany, with Schopenhauer and (later) Nietzsche, and continued to develop alongside a petty-bourgeois stage of academic philosophy until such time, apparently, as pseudo-philosophy came to the fore as the logical successor to the anti-philosophical tradition, a higher type of petty-bourgeois philosophy which leaves the academic tradition behind, since the latter is unable to extend beyond a lower petty-bourgeois stage, being aligned with appearances and, therefore, stemming from a proton root. It is the furthest straining at the leash, so to speak, of an academic tradition, whereas pseudo-philosophy extends towards a proletarian absolutism from its roots in anti-philosophy, that pseudo-electron equivalent. Does such pseudo-philosophy become genuinely free, however? Apparently not, since it must express metaphysical ideas and thus remain intelligible. Yet when it gets to the stage of abandoning the aphoristic root, as it seemingly does on the level of the highest pseudo-philosophy, then it almost becomes genuinely free, is virtually a free-electron equivalent in relation to anti-philosophy. Likewise, the progression from anti-literature to pseudo-literature is one that outstrips the tail-end, as it were, of the novelistic tradition, as mainly pertaining to Western Europe, and takes an illusional twist on the level of a bound-electron equivalent. This progression from autobiographical novels to largely experimental, non-expressive novels signifies a development from lower to higher petty-bourgeois stages of literary evolution, and is especially relevant to contemporary America, with its relatively post-atomic bias. Apparently, this pseudo-literature, like its negative forerunner, corresponds to a pseudo-electron equivalent, though the third speaker makes no mention of the fact that, like abstract art, it can also entail a free-electron status when primarily concerned with religious issues of a transcendent nature, as in the novels of Jack Kerouac. But, of course, when one is simply distinguishing between different stages of literary development, from academic philosophy through to poetry via novels, then one's scale of reference necessarily differs from what it would be in the event of each stage being considered in isolation, so that, willy-nilly, pseudo-literature becomes a pseudo-electron equivalent in relation to pure poetry, that ultimate art form, about which the third speaker has some enlightened views. Certainly, one should distinguish once again between the negative and the positive stages of this largely American development, the anti-poets turning against the European tradition of pseudo-poetry, with its emphasis on appearance and description, as relevant to a bound-electron equivalent. Whether they should be regarded as pseudo-electron or as free-electron equivalents, however, is not clear, though I suspect he had the former in mind, since he speaks of the emphasis changing, with pure poetry, to a concern with metaphysics, as germane to a free-electron bias - a supposition which would suggest that the later petty-bourgeois stage of poetic development doesn't simply stem from the earlier stage, but pertains to a new spectrum of poetic evolution - one directly leading towards the ultimate pure poetry of an absolute civilization, which would avail itself of computers. If that is so, then one need not doubt that pseudo-philosophy and pseudo-literature also pertain to separate spectra of literary evolution from their negative forerunners. Truly a complex affair!

*

"We should distinguish, I believe, between soul and pseudo-soul, not to say between pseudo-spirit and spirit. Thus we will be distinguishing, on the one hand, between that which is uniquely soul and that which is basically spirit conditioned by soul, and, on the other hand, between that which is basically soul conditioned by spirit and that which is uniquely spirit. Soul, as we all know, pertains to the body, is the occult side, as it were, of the physical, the wavicle aspect of the flesh. Soul is what we feel, and we can feel either negative or positive feelings, depending on the context. We can describe negative feelings as occult, strictly appertaining to the proton content of the flesh's atomicity, and, by contrast, positive feelings as pseudo-occult, since appertaining to the neutron content of the flesh's atomicity - in other words to pseudo-soul. However, if soul is never alone in the body, its greatest preponderance over pseudo-soul is in the flesh, where negative sensations somewhat outweigh positive ones in intensity.

"From sensational depths, however, soul proceeds through emotional middlings in the heart to feeling heights in the old brain, becoming, all the time, more diluted with pseudo-soul until, by the time it reaches the new brain, it is distinctly pseudo itself, functioning on the level of thought, as conditioned and promulgated by awareness, i.e. genuine spirit, and therefore akin to pseudo-spirit. By contrast, pseudo-soul acquires more positivity the higher it ascends until, by the time it reaches the old brain, it is the strongest feeling, the pseudo-occult preponderating over the occult, whether as happiness or love. Here soul co-exists with bound spirit as subconscious, as spirit conditioned by and in some degree enslaved to soul. For whereas soul is feeling and, at least in the old brain, also visionary appearances, spirit is awareness, or consciousness, and the awareness of the subconscious is distinctly sensual, as we discover when we sleep and contemplate dreams through bound spirit.

"Yet if spirit is bound in the old brain, it's most decidedly free in the new one, where it exists as superconscious, as awareness untrammelled by feelings and/or thoughts, and thus pertains to the supernatural, the psychological side, as it were, of the natural, with particular reference to the new brain. This free spirit co-exists, as I've said, with pseudo-spirit, the transmutation of soul from the occult in the old brain to the quasi-supernatural in the new brain, where it manifests in thought, as conditioned by the majority electron content, functioning as awareness, of that brain. Thus soul expands from the flesh to the old brain, pseudo-soul likewise, where it co-exists with bound spirit. Free spirit exclusively appertains to the superconscious, where it co-exists with the pseudo-spirit of the new brain. Although existing in the new brain, free spirit is not of the new brain. Appertaining to the supernatural, it can be cultivated to the point of transcendence and so become entirely free of the natural.

"Evolution will witness the subsequent detachment of noumenon from phenomenon, of superconscious from new brain. The reformed neutron content of pseudo-spirit, together with the atomicity of new-brain materialism as a whole, will be escaped from in the course of millennial time, as free electrons emerge from the earth's most artificial (post-human) life-form ... to expand into and converge towards other such free-electron transcendences in space, conceived as the setting for the post-millennial Beyond."

I like the distinction the fourth speaker draws between bound spirit as subconscious and free spirit as superconscious, the one enslaved, during sleep, to soul; the other free to condition thoughts, which pertain to pseudo-spirit. He could have emphasized the fact that such freedom is relative as opposed to absolute, since spirit only becomes truly free when wrapped-up in self-contemplation, as appertaining to meditation. Nevertheless the use of spirit as will to condition thought, to order and regulate it, bespeaks a freedom of sorts, if only relatively so. Not surprisingly, this distinction between pseudo-spirit and spirit, thought and awareness, anticipates the social distinction which must soon arise between quasi-supermen and supermen, the former as pseudo-electron equivalents, the latter as free-electron equivalents. Conversely, at the alpha or pagan end of the spectrum, his distinction between soul and pseudo-soul, negative and positive feelings, calls to mind the pre-atomic distinction he occasionally makes - for I have heard him speak on a number of occasions - between superwomen and quasi-superwomen, whilst in between the two extremes one finds the atomic distinction between apparent soul, as dreams, and bound spirit, as subconscious, mirroring the heterosexual stage of evolution whereby men and women co-exist on separate terms within an open society, in which marriage is the norm. Returning, however, to his argument, one can understand how in a post-atomic society, whether relatively or absolutely such, the new brain comes to acquire greater importance, since the focal-point of psychic activity has shifted away from both the flesh and the old brain to a mounting concern with the development of spirit. Undoubtedly, whilst a relatively post-atomic society will place more emphasis on the conditioning of pseudo-spirit by spirit, its absolutist successor will favour the cultivation of pure spirit, as appropriate to a genuinely post-atomic age. Transcendental meditation will supersede LSD tripping, leading, inevitably, to the post-human millennium and beyond when, as he maintains, free electrons will emerge to converge towards and expand into other such transcendent noumena in space. Turning right away from pseudo-spirit, genuine spirit will become divine, the superconscious at length escaping from the new brain, the supernatural arising not from the natural but from the most artificially supported and sustained of life forms - the new-brain collectivizations of the superbeings!

*

"Bourgeois painting, surrounded by and encased within its wooden frame, marks the mid-point in the evolution of art, the dualistic compromise, as it were, between sculpture and holography. Either side of this representational art-form one finds the largely pagan mural, conceived in naturalistic terms, and the largely transcendental abstract-painting of 'modern art', that antithetical equivalent of the mural which, exhibited against a wall rather than - as with murals - on one, is usually free of a frame. If the mural is higher/later grand-bourgeois, then 'contemporary' canvas art is very much lower/earlier petty-bourgeois.

"We have started in the middle, so let us now proceed further outwards to embrace the art forms either side of the above-mentioned ones, which, of course, are vase modelling on the one hand and light art on the other, the former lower/earlier grand-bourgeois, the latter higher/later petty-bourgeois; the one particularly relevant to the ancient Greeks, the other to their antithetical equivalents, the modern Americans. As vase modelling, even with its painting, is closer in essence to sculpture than to either murals or framed paintings, so light art is closer in essence to holography than to either 'modern art' or framed paintings. Amphora art stems from sculpture no less than light art aspires towards holography, the aristocratic and proletarian extremes, respectively, in the evolution of art.

"So that brings us - does it not? - to the beginnings of art in pure sculpture, usually conceived in stone, and to the culmination of art in pure holography, as a projection into enclosed space of an image/design through refracted light. Whereas the former is utterly materialistic and mundane, standing on the ground or, in its earliest manifestations, carved from the bare face of mountain rock, the latter is utterly spiritualistic and transcendent, seemingly floating free of material connections, suspended, so to speak, in the void as an intimation of pure spirit, such as would be compatible with an absolutely transcendental civilization, the refinement of holography from representational to abstract levels taking place there as a matter of chronological course.

"Where does one find the earliest manifestations of fine art? In Egypt, that cradle of pagan civilization, where the largest and most materialistic sculptures were chiselled into existence, carved out of the towering mountain rocks or set free to stand on the ground like a reformed rock, a formful boulder. And, not altogether surprisingly, such pure sculpture was very often created in animal or semi-animal forms, beasts being closer to nature and therefore closer to the Creator than men, more fundamental than their evolutionary successors. Ah, such diabolical art!

"Where, by contrast, will one find the latest and highest manifestations of fine art? Hopefully, in Eire, should it become the champion of a full-blown transcendental civilization given to the creation of the most pure holography, abstract and transcendent. Certainly, pure holography must spread from there to every country on earth, as civilization becomes truly universal and all mankind are disposed to contemplation of the ultimate civilized art - that of the people."

Yes, one looks forward to the development of abstract holography, that ultimate art, which should be formless rather than formful or, rather, formal, like ancient sculpture. The fifth speaker is certainly correct to imply that such art could only be championed by an absolute civilization, since contemporary holography, pertaining to the relatively post-atomic societies of the bourgeois/proletarian West (with particular reference to America), is generally representational, and therefore relative. It's on a level with original anthological poetry and modern jazz, a level contiguous with the finest light art which, ironically, is non-representational or, rather, abstract. Certainly, at its best, light art is closer to holography than to painting, just as, from a converse viewpoint, the vase art of, for instance, the ancient Greeks was closer, in essence, to sculpture than to murals, even though it involved the painting of tiny figures on the curvilinear surface of the vases. Such vases stemmed from formal sculptures no less than contemporary light art aspires towards the formless holograms of the future.... As for so-called modern art, I would never have considered it the antithetical equivalent of murals had not the speaker pointed out this fact. Murals were naturalistic and on a wall, whereas avant-garde painting, by contrast, is non-representational and/or abstract and distinct from a wall, painted on a lightweight canvas which, as a rule, is free of a frame, that wooden surround suggestive of a sculptural connection. Indeed, bourgeois paintings would seem to stem from sculpture rather than - as with the best and most progressive modern art - to aspire towards holography. A quintessentially middle-of-the-road development in the history of art's evolution, both materialistic and spiritualistic at the same time. But then, with modern art, the beginnings of a transvaluation of values, the severance of painting from sculptural/representational connections, as it is conceived, upon a frame-free canvas, in increasingly non-representational terms, becoming, with the transformation to light art (and even a little while before that), an unequivocally abstract intimation of spiritual truth, and the relatively post-atomic forerunner of abstract holography. Of course, one should not overlook the fact that modern art in Western Europe and modern art in America signify two distinct traditions, nor forget that such art is itself divisible into a kind of higher materialism, or pseudo-spirituality, and a lower idealism ... wherever relative criteria apply, as happens to be the case in the contemporary West.

*

"How dreadful to behold a man or a woman walking a dog down the street! How still more dreadful to have to suffer the appalling noise of continuous barking! How vulgar and demeaning is the spectacle of dog's excrement on pavements and roads!

"No, a time must surely come when men are freed from this ghastly atomicity, severed from the proton root of a beast and obliged to be not bound-electron but free-electron equivalents. Dogs can have no place in a free-electron civilization. They will have to be banished and/or destroyed, along with cats, horses, hamsters, and other unnecessary animals. The spirit of the Last Judgement must extend to beasts as well as to those categories of human beings which stem from the Diabolic Alpha and consequently oppose evolutionary progress.

"Truly, there are many who are too corrupt and foolish to take such teachings seriously, people who would oppose their implementation. But, rest assured, they won't oppose them for ever! Judgement will be merciless and irrevocable. He saves, but he also damns; he isn't absolute. He brings a 'sword' as well as the Truth."

No doubt the sixth speaker suffers or has suffered a great deal from barking dogs ... to bring such a mundane subject so callously into his predominantly Messianic lecture. His suggestion that dogs, together with other pets, constitute the proton side of an atomic integrity involving pet-owners is most interesting, and doubtless true as well! Clearly, there can be no such atomicities in the absolutely post-atomic society that must one day soon come to pass. So away with dogs, cats, horses, etc. in the name of free-electron progress! Curious how he made no reference to the fact that the relatively post-atomic civilization of contemporary America could be regarded as having pioneered, through the development of such animal cartoons as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, a relative transcendence of animals ... suggestive of a transitional stage between the indulgence of pets and their eventual destruction. There is something agreeably artificial about these animal cartoons, and doubtless the speaker has enjoyed them in the past, even if they only signify a relative transcendence of animals, as applying to the substance rather than to the form. Still, the absolute transcendence of pets isn't something that I, for one, would greatly regret, since I don't own any. In fact, I'm fairly confident that the implementation of a banishment and/or destruction order on dogs, cats, horses, etc., would constitute an aspect, by no means the least important, of the Last Judgement.