THE INSTITUTE FOR TACTICAL DISCOURSE
Researcher: Good morning fellow patriots, and welcome to the Institute for Tactical Discourse! Here at the Institute, we’re putting scholarship in the Humanities to work in the War on Terror. Our staff of erudite theorists, devious philosophers, and cunning linguists are at work round the clock in the cause of freedom.
[enter Dr. Lessing]
Dr. Lessing: Yes, our cunning linguists are the best around!
Researcher: Ah, Dr. Lessing, good morning!
Dr. Lessing: Good morning!
Researcher: Dr. Lessing is head of the top secret Dada infiltration squads, known as Operation Artichoke Melancholy.
Dr. Lessing: Yes we’ve found Dadaism to be extremely useful in demoralizing the enemy.
[enter Iraqi soldier and Dada troop, dressed in black body-suit covered with plastic lobsters]
Iraqi Soldier: Halt or I fire!
Dada troop: But you cannot kill me!
Iraqi Soldier: Why not?
Dada troop: I am holding a lemon!
Iraqi: Well, what does that have to do with it?
[Dada troop begins to do a back bend while singing “Wien, wien, nur du allein....”; Iraqi fires and Dada troop falls down in the middle of his back-bend; Iraqi lowers his weapon and stares at the Dada troop’s body in confusion and despair]
Dr. Lessing: We do lose a lot of men, but the tactical advantage of the enemy’s growing sense of alienation can’t be underestimated.
Researcher: Oh and of course we can’t forget the strategic value of Marxism.
Dr. Lessing: Oh yes, of course!
Marxist Scholar with Bullhorn, lying on the ground behind a
pile of sandbags [with German accent]: ...and thus we must conclude that
warfare is a hegemonic construct used to perpetuate a state of poverty and
powerlessness among the people of
only logical course of action is to resist this power structure on an individual level, and through tactical reversal of discourse use warfare as a tool of the downtrodden against the hegemony, freeing yourselves from an oligarchical power structure that, by participating in the very structure that oppresses you, you have given your implicit assent to. Now let us turn to the question of the creation of wealth and its ownership....
Voice of Iraqi Soldier [offstage]: What’s he going on about?
Other Soldier [offstage]: I don’t know just throw a grenade at him.
[grenade flies in from offstage, blows up Scholar]
Iraqi Soldier: Hey! I think he said that warfare is a hegemonical construct!
Other Soldier: Hmmm
Iraqi Soldier: Yeah....
Other Soldier: Hey....wanna go start a commune?
Iraqi Soldier: Yeah, why not!
Researcher: Oh and we’re very proud of our Conceptual Art Guerilla Warfare Unit.
[group of troops stumble confusedly across the stage, wrapped in pink plastic chased by an extravagantly dressed artiste carrying a roll of the plastic]
Dr. Lessing: Existentialism has also been put to extremely good use.
[Iraqi troops sitting around a campfire, with books open in their hands but not reading, blank expressions on their faces.]
Troop 1: What?
Troop 2: nothing
Troop 3: but I thought, I thought there was something
Troop 2: no
Troop 1: When?
Troop 3: Does it matter?
Troop 2: It could matter. It must matter. [wailing, grabbing Troop 3’s shirt] Yes! Yes it does matter!! [Troop 3 does not respond, Troop 2 lets go and sits back down, the blank look returning] Say something.
Troop 3: What should I say?
Troop 2: Anything.
Troop 1: There’s nothing to say. There never was. [Troop 2 turns a blank stare on Troop 1] Don’t look at me. I can’t take it when you look at me like that. It makes me feel like I’m sinking into the earth, or turning translucent, like you can see the grass through my body.
Researcher: Our pride and joy, however, is our new top-secret weapon, the GLAD.
[Dr. Lessing produces a large ray gun, with flowers protruding from it at various places, and with somewhere a small Monet painting attached with large wires coming out of the frame]
Dr. Lessing: Yes the GLAD, or Gleeon Lasing Amplification Device, arose out of the discovery that certain Impressionistic paintings emit fundamental particles.
Researcher: We like to call these particles “Gleeons”.
[both researchers laugh at this]
Dr. Lessing: Lets see a demonstration.
[enter American Troop and several very mean and hostile Iraqi Troops, armed; Dr. Lessing hands over GLAD to American Troop who fires it at Iraqis; GLAD sprays perhaps confetti or party foam or flower petals, at Iraqis; cue music: Beethoven’s “Pastorale” symphony; Iraqis immediately drop their weapons, begin to hold hands, pick flowers, dance, skip, play jump-rope, hug each other, etc.]
Researcher [voice trembling with emotion]: We’ve done it Dr. Lessing. We’ve finally done it! We’ve invented the world’s first Weapon of Mass Affection!
[Iraqis skip over, engulf Dr. Lessing and Researcher in their group, and all skip, cartwheel, jump-rope, pirouette, and otherwise frolic offstage]