Concerns the tutorial during which that which history seeks to illuminate is approached… then another argument erupts in the Mingling Bar
On the second floor of the New Education Building (in a room marked 2A), a group of students had convened a tutorial as was usually the case every Friday afternoon. Checking his watch, their tutor, Professor Owen, ordered all to silence, spoke briefly about yet another assignment to write before the end of the month (copies of which were available in the Head of Department’s Office upon request), and finally asked Besa Musunga to begin the presentation. The student shuffled some papers and rose to the presenter’s place at the lecturer’s table. The tutorial was now in progress.
‘Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen,’ he greeted.
‘Good afternoon, sir,’ they said, hiding their grins.
‘Before I begin today’s presentation, allow me to inform the house that my co-presenter, Miss Miya Muchimba, is taken ill and admitted in our clinic. She has malaria but her condition is improving. I was informed by the Sister-in-Charge that Miya would soon be discharged as soon as she completed her medication. We can only wish her a fast recovery so that she joins us in our studies. As everyone knows, Miya‘s contributions have proved very intelligent, interesting and fruitful, and I dare say that I shall miss her this afternoon. But I’ll try to do my best to discuss our assignment. I only hope that Professor Owen and discussants will accept this apology as genuine and excusable.’ To which everyone consented.
‘Today’s discussion, ladies and gentlemen, is about capitalism. I shall first trace the origin and development of this important phenomenon. Then I shall discuss some basic features of capitalism such as private ownership, markets, labour, international capital, banking, tariffs, the State, and so on, to help us understand capital polarisation or the global economy – the Poor and the Rich, if you wish. My focus of attention is England, though I shall also feel at liberty to cite a few experiences elsewhere, particularly in Russia and Germany. Finally I shall demonstrate how western capitalism under-develops the world. I shall use India and Africa as examples.
‘From my discussion it will become apparent that I have relied on Karl Marx, Walter Rodney, Rosa Luxemburg, E J Hobsbawn, Joseph Stranger, Cole and Clough, Maurice Dobb, R Coulburn, Sweezy and Wallace K Ferguson. I have also used some journals and world financial reports and some lesser texts.’
Then he caught the attention of the audience by his persuasiveness and show of inter-relatedness of ideas and significant facts for almost three quarters an hour. When he finished speaking, there was a spell of silence save the sound of pens scratching paper as other students jotted down relevant points. Besa waited for the worst part
– answering questions from his interlocutors. A hand was up al
ready.
‘You have a question or a comment?’
‘I have a question,’ said Muchacha. ‘I need a clarification on some of your sources. I notice that you have also included two books by Russian writers whom I believe are very great. Yet I wonder whether the authority of your references is not undermined by the use of fiction in a serious academic work like this. Do you think such an inclusion is scholarly legitimate?’
‘Well …I suppose so. One author I just referred to lived at the time feudalism was still existent in Russia. To the extent that the work in question was, at least in part, influenced by feudal conditions … yes, the inclusion is legitimate. Moreover, Leo Tolstoy was not only a writer but a landlord and reformer. The book cited is on land reform in Russia.’
‘What about the other book – the novel? It is a fictitious book.’
‘Undoubtedly, Mister Muchacha,’ replied Besa. ‘I quoted Dostoyevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamazov, to shed light on the social context in which serfs generally lived.’
‘You quoted a book of fiction that cannot be relied on as a historical document,’ the same student insisted. ‘The word “fiction” is derived from the Latin word, “fictio”, which means an invention or something imaginary, something which is different from what reality actually is. Fiction merely distorts and falsifies reality – it cannot therefore be used. This is why Plato condemned the arts.’
Besa took some time to respond:
‘In a certain sense you are right: we must be careful which written sources to use in our research. I understand this very well – the dangers that are inherent in using artistic materials. But I also think your working assumption, “Everything fictitious cannot be used as a historical source”, may not apply to every case. Some seemingly fictitious books have turned out to be invaluable sources of truth. For example, Sol T Plaatje’s novel, Mhudi, has provided us some information about Southern Africa. Other books such as Peter Abrahams’ Mine Boy, Stephen Mpanshi’s Chekesoni Aingila Ubusoja (Chekesoni joins the Army), and Ngugi’s Weep Not Child provide historical information in a guise of a simple narrative. In a word, therefore, while it may be admitted that some fiction can deceive, it may also be affirmed that some other may not. The reason is simple. When an artist forges in his soul a work of art, the work so produced does not evolve from nothing. It is generated from concrete conditions of existence in which he is located, and creativity is not an unconscious act. Like crystals or other objects the author is subjected to the properties of space and time – which is why novels can be differentiated or classified on this basis. Ultimately there is no fiction, and you’ll perhaps recall that Freud’s research method as tested on the wandering psyche rested on his belief that whatever a person says or does has meaning and relates to his total personality, personality being the function of the environment. When one takes care to scratch the surface of Hellenic myths or the African mask, for example, one discovers – if not actually the truth – at least some likeness of truth.’
Nobody dared contest him now. They were all quiet.
‘As for your allusion to Plato,’ Besa continued, ‘the fact that he despised the arts or called them imitations or shadows of reality does not render the arts, or poetry in particular, false in every case. Art sometimes represents reality or what I may call “reality”, since there seems to be a difference in what constitutes what is real. In the Platonic sense, art is condemned and banished because it concentrates on empirical being and only in exciting the senses rather than the intellect. Because of the nature of his epistemology Plato calls inferior anything which does not tend to the world of Ideas in which, according to him, reality and true knowledge subsists. But in the sense in which I am using the word “reality”, art represents that reality which is particular, contingent and concrete, which is what history seeks. That which is historical can never be found in the Platonic Ideas. For if it was, it would no longer be historical. History concentrates on change without seeking laws that regulate these changes, laws that are characterised by necessity and universality, laws beyond which there is nothing. History stops at the empirical or at facts that originate, have a duration and an end, whereas the philosophical-reality that led Plato to condemn the arts transcend the historical. Therefore, in supporting Plato’s theory of art and your condemnation of what is “fictitious”, you are not exactly being historical. Perhaps you should redefine your terms of discourse or tell me clearly what is meant by historical truth and the means by which to reach it.’
‘I raised an objection to your fictitious material because I believe it is not correct,’ said Muchacha. ‘We’re not free to use any relics anyhow.’
‘I agreed with, sir,’ responded Besa, ‘though only to a limited extent. But look, when I used Dostoyevsky’s scene of a child torn to pieces by the general’s hounds, I sought to show the relationship between serfs and their masters. I started my presentation with this prelude in order to capture your imagination of the conditions on the manor. Serfs are generally hungry, landless, and unfree and are often conscripted into wars or crusades even without their consent. Perhaps most importantly, they don’t own the means of production but merely sell their labour for nothing. Like characters in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the oppressed are not in control of their destiny because of a conscious decision of other people. The manor as a social, cultural, military and economic unit was the starting point in tracing the preconditions for capitalism, conditions which Europe exported to the Americas and else where.
‘When you said, “We’re not free to use any relics anyhow,” you were perhaps right. However, to write a history is to reconstruct and give meaning to important events and changes, which affected man as he was in the past under consideration. This process is an abstraction, as when you reduce a concept down to its real connotation by choosing only those attributes that are sufficient and necessary, and nothing more. It is a human abstraction – and as a result no history is ever complete. There are glaring gaps just as there are on a number line. Again, depending on the answer to the question, “Why write this history rather than another?” the historian is led to choose necessary facts available from different sources. He sees areas of agreement or disagreement and then proposes an interpretation that accounts for the facts. Where does he collect them? Well, from sources such as sculptures, paintings, architecture, oral and written literature, photographs or pictures, and so on. The history of N’gombe Ilede as commercial site in precolonial Zambia, for example, was constructed from the study of the material culture there such as pottery pieces, copper crosses, beads and human skeletons in different burial sites… This is all I know. But if you still insist, then you ought to explain your position, Mister Muchacha. Or
– why does Andrew Roberts, in his study of the Bemba, use oral stories as his source?’ Another hand was up. It was Gloria Njira, widely known as The
Young Lady by all her course mates. ‘Yes, Gloria?’
‘I have an observation to make about the role of religion in the development of capitalism,’ she said. ‘But before I do so I would like to agree with you on your use of some fiction in research. As Mister Muchacha will remember, research in history, as a social science, demands an inter-disciplinary approach or openness. This means there are no precise guidelines for data collection provided the material is relevant and collaborated by other sources. I think Besa has demonstrated this very well – considering the fact that his citations are quite impressive. My disagreement with him, however, is on that part of the paper which relates religion and the growth of the capitalist spirit; the part in the presentation which establishes a necessary link between the capitalist spirit and such religious movements as founded by Luther, Calvin and Zwingli…It’s about this I want to speak…’
After the tutorial, Besa and two friends went to the Mingling Bar for drinks. It was quarter past sixteen and crowded in the Bar, yet they managed to find a vacant table and smoked cigarettes in silence, each engrossed in his own thoughts. Besa looked at his companions and voiced his lament:
‘I forgot to add something in the tutorial. Do you remember what Aristotle said was the weakest point in his master’s metaphysical system?’
‘He said Plato’s chief deficiency was in the relationship between Ideas and phenomena,’ replied Nalumino. ‘He couldn’t clearly resolve the contradictions between being and becoming, a problem already paused by the pre-Socratics but which the Stagirite was to attempt to solve later.’
‘Precisely. And with regard to the arts you’ll recall that Aristotle commends the use of comedy as a means to represent truth. For him the arts do not wish to imitate the contingent but the universal, intelligible and rational. Art has an educative value… Perhaps I should have found some way of applying this to the argument about the use of fiction. What do you say?’
‘I say, brilliant ideas always come after a fight,’ Nalumino grinned. ‘Anyhow, you did your best and got away with a B plus.’
‘Girls normally get B pluses and better without any effort,’ Sichone interjected quickly, ‘while you guys sweat it out in the Lib trying to extract data.’
Everyone laughed. Nalumino then said:
‘Beware of your insinuations, boy. Someone might overhear.’
‘I don’t give a shit. Who doesn’t know that some lecturers here give good grades to girls in exchange for sex? There is a lot of fucking going on in these offices. My niece, Georgina, was telling me the other day that one of her course mates is getting As from a lecturer she sleeps with. Now do you know what grades that lecturer gives the monk who lends out his assignments to the same girl to copy? He gives him C pluses and Bs – if he’s lucky!’
‘Never mind grades,’ said Besa. ‘We’re concerned with Aristotle and not trivialities.’
‘Oh, you and your little gods!’ Sichone answered with a wave of his hand. ‘I bet you dream about him every night!’
‘He’s better than all of us,’ Nalumino asserted proudly. ‘And we mustn’t discuss him as if he were just any ordinary person.’
‘He’s just as human as you and me,’ Sichone returned, visibly offended. ‘Just as human as anyone else. No one should be raised on a pedestal.’
‘True,’ Besa added, ‘but then some humans are lepers, lunatics, imbeciles and foolish, while some others are not – so that distinctions between species in the same genus may sometimes become inevitable.’
‘Such distinctions are superficial and accidental. You said as much yourself when you discussed the real connotation of a term during the tutorial.’
‘I made that reference specifically to one type of definition … definition per genus et differentiam…because it is analogous to the writing of a history – as this requires a process of selecting just those facts which are significant in fixing a historical situation in its proper context. This is what I meant, nor did I deny the existence of different histories.’
‘All human beings are human without distinction.’
‘No doubt about that,’ Besa said. ‘But seriously speaking no coordinate species is ever alike in every respect.’
‘And there are no such things as categories and universals. We live in a world of particulars in which similarities among observable phenomena is a fiction,’ Nalumino laughed.
‘Perhaps you don’t realise the implications of such a grand idea,’ Sichone protested. ‘Your thinking is just as destructive as that of the British empiricist Hume who thought Blacks to be inferior to Whites.’
‘Just because we can’t discover horseness in individual horses?’ Besa asked. He had seen David Hume’s work, Essay of national characters, and considered it unworthy of a man who opted to remain rational.
‘What do you mean?’
‘In an argument with Plato about the nature of concepts, the empiric nominalist,Antisthenes, told the former: “O Plato, I see the horse, but the horseness – that I do not see,” and Plato replied: “You do not see the horseness because you have nothing but the eyes of the body.’
‘Yes,’ Sichone looked pleased. ‘You have nothing but the eyes of the body.’
‘It’s difficult to infer with certainty the particular from the universal or pass from the particular to the universal. Such a passage is illegitimate, illogical and unreal. It is akin to a leap from the logical to the ontological plane. Perhaps the most we can do is propose a world of concepts to which nature approximates – just like pure mathematicians do. In Bertrand Russell’s words mathematics is “the subject in which we never know what we are talking about nor whether what we are saying is true,” which is exactly the point. We can never assimilate the world in its absolute uniformity, essence and entirety. Such a world is closed to us because no passage from the particular to the universal ever exists!’ Nalumino explained.
‘You’re a bunch of nuts,’ Sichone snared. ‘Your theory only provides a basis for all forms of anarchy and cannot even be useful to the spirit of Negritude that every Black person should profess.’
‘The spirit of Negritude you’ve just mentioned,’ Nalumino answered again, ‘is admittedly a genuine problem in African thought. But every individual is the shaper of their destiny and should therefore rise to the demands of what they choose to be provided their choice truly coincides with their individual essence. Africanness or the search for an African identity does not consist in a collective attempt to become one prescribed ideal. It consists in an attempt by individuals to live their lives as fully developed individuals who can’t help becoming individuals and can’t apologise to the world for what they truly are. The interiority of this essence, then, is the starting point, so that no one is allowed to look further than themselves
– to Negritude or Europeanness or any other idea flavoured with a vague universality. No one should hide from themselves in preference for some recommended ideal that may not actually exist.’
‘Moreover,’ Besa took up the argument, ‘since universality cannot be made to discover particular objects in their fullest individuality, it follows that Africanness cannot describe me as completely as I am. Someone is not everyone, he’s someone!’
‘You have misunderstood me,’ said Sichone regretfully.
‘No we haven’t,’ Besa claimed. ‘Our position is the refusal to raise the universal to the level of primacy. The particular is the starting point, and you cannot abolish that.’
‘Themes about Negritude or the Black experience as elaborated by Senghor, Nkhrumah, Kaunda, Fanon and a dozen others are not just particular themes about a particular sort of people. They echo real experiences of people who have been tied by a common doom – slavery, racism, colonialism and underdevelopment,’ Sichone said. ‘So when we define Africanness as a historical fact or phenomenon, we’re talking about the African personality as a collective person pitted against his past, his present and his future. We’re saying, “What are we about in relation to what we have gone through?” This is a question that exacts answers. It is a general question.’
‘Without doubt you’re right,’ Besa agreed. ‘Yet remember that our argument, if there is an argument at all, is not about Negritude as such but concerns particulars and universals. In your case you perceive resemblances among things that we presume to be unlike, whereas in our case we perceive differences among things that you presume to be alike, and there is a supervening suspicion that since both these cases cannot be true at once,’ and Besa recalled the Stagirite’s attempt to resolve the problem of being and becoming by recourse to the idea of potency and act, the metaphysical disputations of Suarez, the concept of association of David Hume, and Kant’s struggles to unite rationalism and empiricism in a more advanced type of phenomenalism, ‘then surely one of the cases must be true, the other false…Your position reminds me of the one posited by realists who maintained that because universals exist in individuals’ things – as, for example, Africanness in individual Africans, therefore all differences between individual species are accidental as the genera is prior to the individual or the particular, and by implication individual existence is thus denied. On the other hand our position in this regard is somewhat similar to that of the nominalists in so far as we consider the universal to be something posterior to the individual. In other words nature does not in itself contain the universal, but the mind, like Russell’s definition of mathematics, forms universal ideas, which try to correspond to reality or individual things. The individual is prote ousia or the primary substance of all modes of genera and species, as Aquinas and Aristotle also teach. The universal as an idea of a class is simply the manner in which the thinking-subject may relate individual things to itself. It is an abstraction on the basis of some characteristics in common. But the general idea or universal, taken as such without particular things, cannot be made to discover the nature of reality. It possesses the qualities of universality and necessity but cannot, according to Kant, lead to any true understanding of nature…’
‘I don’t quite understand you,’ Sichone observed with serious air about him, ‘though I admit that our present problem is such as you have stated it. But if the individual is the primary reality or prote ousia, as you would have it, how can the objectivity of knowledge be guaranteed? Nalumino has denied the existence of categories and universals and called them fictitious, while you, Besa, have been silent about the origin of universals in a mind, which is itself actually particular and part of nature. I appreciate your arguments but feel they are fraught with contradictions. Was it not Kant who found empiricism unsatisfactory since it lacks necessity and universality, the basic elements all true knowledge must possess? Does knowledge consist in the knowledge of the particular?’
‘The question we’re answering,’ Nalumino answered, ‘is not the one about what constitutes true knowledge and what does not, but we’re questioning particulars and universals. I have personally denied the existence of universals and categories because these are not subsistent entities as such, but are concepts of particular things that are considered alike in some manner, the likeness being a pure abstraction since the mind may choose to adopt itself to the things differently…’
‘I cannot understand you,’ Sichone repeated wearily. ‘I believe discussions about particulars and universals imply the types of knowledge that necessarily correspond to each?’
‘Somehow, yes. But we wish to determine whether things that are radically different may be taken to be the same, or whether things that are apparently the same may be considered to be different.’
‘And the answer to the former is still affirmative. All humans are the same.’
‘Perhaps you’re right. But Lenshina was a politician but she was quite different from other politicians. She committed crimes that none dared commit… and happily ended up in jail.’
‘You’re misplaced. Lenshina did not end up in because she had committed that you would properly call crimes. She was jailed because her religious fervour was seen to be a threat to the government.’
Nalumino’s voice then soared: ‘Are you denying this too? Are you refuting historical facts?’
‘There are no historical facts as far as this is concerned. Much of what had been said about and the Lumpa Church is cheap propaganda aimed at justifying government brutal force against the sect. I am surprised that you should be a victim of rhetoric!’
Nalumino stood up trembling. The debate had now taken a more heated bent as the two students indulged their emotions and clashed like protagonists.
‘I despise President Beyani and his repressive regime,’ Nalumino was heard as saying, ‘yet on this point I am prepared to defend the State against false allegations…Alice Lenshina was just a misguided religious who, together with her followers, committed acts that were not only illegal but morally outrageous as well. They drunk urine freely like beer and ate their own excrement, and to test their faith in God sometimes jumped from rooftops believing angels would catch them in mid-air. But this was not all. Besides portraying Jesus as a Blackman or praying naked in Church, the sect shunned singing the national anthem and belittled formal education like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and finally advocated civil disobedience for no good reason. Her teaching had neither sound doctrine nor support from the mainstream Church. It was no wonder the sect received little sympathy from the people.’
‘You’re totally mistaken,’ Sichone contradicted. ‘To say the truth Lenshina represents those unusual leaders capable of challenging existing politics even in the face of political intolerance. If her teaching had no appeal, why did the State send soldiers to slaughter many of her followers and destroy their homes? The fact is: she did have some influence and government felt threatened because she was becoming too popular. She spoke out against dictatorship and at times hinted at an alternative government representation...but for which no one in power was prepared. It was not surprising, therefore, that she should be imprisoned. And many of her followers fled to Congo and neighbouring countries for fear of the State.’
‘The woman was religious: she had no reason to meddle in politics.’
‘But religious experience cannot be divorced from politics. Both are social facts. But even admitting this to be false, Lenshina had the right to profess any system of beliefs that she chose and discuss affairs of the country any time she wished.’
‘It was her system of beliefs which made people do outrageous acts, though.’
‘Everyone is free to express their beliefs.’
‘Some beliefs are dangerous and cannot lead to good ends. The constitution may guarantee certain rights to the citizens. On the other hand it is the duty of the State to uphold law and order or even withdraw those very rights from the citizens, especially if those rights are exaggerated and wrongly exercised.’
‘The present regime does not represent an ideal type of democracy that upholds the liberties and freedoms of the people. It is characterised by censorship, the state of emergency, detention without trial, police roadblocks, mass fear and the use of the security forces to crush any opposition to the status quo. It is therefore morally wrong to defend such a government that does not respect the natural rights of man. The American Declaration of 1776 asserts, “…whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it…” – ‘The American regime is not the ideal type of democracy either,’ Nalumino maintained. ‘So your analogy is weak and cannot be made to appear as a standard against which lesser democracies may be measured…If that nation was truly a democracy, it would not have sustained a deliberate policy of discriminating against Blacks and other minority groups. Your Declaration only applies to Whites – or to those who should rule the country. America only succeeds in laughing at herself.’
‘But in speaking of democracies or lesser democracies, you are referring to the gradation of democracy and, consequently, to the essence or to that which qualifies democratic nations in its extension. And when you speak of outrageous acts, you are distinguishing between various acts (some outrageous and some not) and you are again implicitly referring to a quality or qualities that make some acts outrageous and some others not. You are talking about the essence or universal.’
‘I am referring to the essence only secondarily. As to the particular, it is the starting point and constitutes the fullest knowledge possible. Essences are not in themselves knowledge of anything at all, but may only be used to understand particulars. On the other hand particulars are particulars as such, that is all. Nor are particulars subordinated to the universal, as is sometimes said of the part to the whole…’
The argument raged on unabated, drawing the attention of other students in the Mingling Bar. As they flayed each other thus, Besa eyed his companions helplessly, remembering the story of two Greek thinkers who, after failing to agree on the precise nature of the ego for several days and nights, finally decided to use weapons in order to settle their dispute forever. And he thought: ‘Soon there’ll be a fistfight where reason has given out. But, surely, entities are alike as to their essence and unlike as to their accidents. One recalls the problem of monists like Thale and Anaximander who asserted that natural phenomena, passing from one state to another, is nonetheless governed by some fixed law by means of which process can be derived or reduced. That is to say, they explained variations in terms of a single substance which, in Thale’s case, was water, and in Anaximander’s case the indeterminate…Or is not the question somewhat similar to the search for the Socratic concept, by virtue of which a mass of instances are united into a single definition? How problematic, profound everything really is!’ For Sichone, implacable in his arguments, looked for the underlying quality in things whereas Nalumino, equally unappeasable, emphasised the empirical or the flux of Heraclitus, though both alluded to the quest for certainty and the absolute.
‘I beg your pardon,’ Besa stood up abruptly. He picked up his books and said, ‘You guys are behaving like jerks and doing your best to attract attention. I am getting out of here.’
‘Hey, wait a minute! Where do you suppose you are going?’ asked Sichone. ‘The discussion isn’t over yet!’
‘I am taking a break and I must speak to someone. The girl that has just passed.’
The undergraduate caught up with Shantiee, as she was about to go into the LT1 (Lecture Theatre 1) and privately drew her aside. Clad in a flowery dress falling in pleats midway between her knees and ankles, the girl emanated freshness, glamour, rarity and innocence (qualities pleasing to the sense!) and listened to him with a reserved expression in her honey-coloured eyes, her manner neither welcoming nor forbidding.
‘I saw you pass by so I ran up just to say hello. I am with friends in the Mingling Bar. I hope you don’t mind me stopping you for a greeting?’
‘Not in the least,’ she replied, looking him full in the face. ‘It’s good to see you again. How are you?’
‘I am ok. You?’
‘I am ok too. I was just about to go in a lecture. My last for today.’ Shantiee glanced anxiously at a group of first years filing into the lecture room like sheep, an eccentric figure of an old man following behind. ‘That’s our mathematics lecturer, Professor Powell. I think I’d better go in now. I’ll see you later.’
‘Just a minute, Shantiee. Have you heard from the Vanguard yet?’
‘O yes. I was going to tell you but forgot. Someone wrote me about meeting to discuss my essays …but we haven’t yet. I am still considering.’
‘Why? I thought you’d already made up your mind to publish with us?’
‘Of course, but that was before your friend contacted me.’ She touched his arm, and peered nearsightedly at him. ‘I am afraid to publish, Besa. I am ashamed of what I wrote.’
‘Nonsense,’ he exploded. ‘You’re not ashamed and we’re going to print your material. You’re very intelligent and I hope you will write vicariously, write and always write! I liked your work and I would like you to produce some more. I’ll not let you give up the promise of a great talent like yours. You’re just a first year and yet you seem to write with authority. You seem to know much already. No, we’ll do everything to expose your work to the public. In the meantime enjoy your lecture. Goodbye!’
‘Wait!’ she cried, her face newly flushed and elated. She hesitated: ‘I…I want to see you again soon. Privately. When can we meet?’
‘Anytime you wish.’
‘Can we have supper together and maybe share a drink in my place? I have a bottle of wine.’
‘That sounds great, but when?’
‘Today! I’ll come to your place at eighteen and we’ll go to makumbi.’
‘That’s okay with me. So we have a date!’
She smiled beautifully at him – and whispered:
‘I’ll see you later. Take care.’And disappeared into the LT1.
Besa returned to his friends and said, almost to himself:
‘Here’s a point for you to consider, my faithful friends! What the one desires, the other wishes, and both delight in the other’s good and will not, as Kant advises us to do, treat the one as a means but as end in themselves. Do you suppose this is possible at campus?’
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Sichone.
‘I am talking about Immanuel Kant and his Categorical Imperative.’
‘O well,’ Sichone sighed. ‘Fuck Aristotle, fuck Kant, and fuck everyone…’
‘Come on, let’s go,’ Besa said. ‘You guys need some rest.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Nalumino. ‘I feel awfully tired.’