Intro.: Music.
ANNOUNCER: Good afternoon everyone, and thanks for tuning in. You're listening to NPR; the next hour of radio is being brought to you by Dissent Magazine. Generous contributions have come from the Ronald McDonald Foundation to Preserve Russian Literature. Today's guest on "Dissent in the Air" is Leech Fyodorovich Fibinski, the once-renowned academic dissident.
LECH: It's pronounced "Lech."
ANNOUNCER: Yes, pardon me, Lech. Shall we begin?
LECH: Certainly.
ANNOUNCER: I'd like to start off by asking exactly what sort of activities you engaged in during your years as a dissident.
LECH: Well, that is a very interesting question, because it immediately calls into question whether or not we have an adequate working definition of what "dissent" really is.
ANNOUNCER: What do you mean?
LECH: You see, I never actually did anything that one might call "dissent," but I was very influential in the things I wrote and said. While nowadays people wouldn't regard that as real dissent, I think to think of myself as the spine of the academic dissidents' movement.
ANNOUNCER: And what things did you say that were so important?
LECH: I was the movement's chief propagandist and slogan writer. It was I who was able to incite the frenzied '76 Rebellion.
ANNOUNCER: If I may ask again, what things did you say that were so important?
LECH: There were a couple of times that I delivered such impassioned speeches that the crowd went into a unified, ecstatic frenzy. In fact, rumor used to have it that if you went up to an epileptic and whispered one of my slogans in his ear, he'd have a seizure sight then and there. No joke.
ANNOUNCER: And what things did you say that were so important?
Pause.
LECH: I can't remember any of them.
ANNOUNCER: Now... You have o record of any actions you took directly against the academy, you can't remember a single one of your jongles, and you'd like our listening audience to think that you were one of the most influential men in the dissident movement?
LECH (angered by the question's shortsightedness): Propaganda is alive! It is not a stagnant, preserved medium! It must tingle with the life-blood of the common folk and thrive as the engine that drives the great automobile "revolution!"
ANNOUNCER: Yes, well, that's a pretty good one, but I don't really see what that has to do with open critiques of academia. Isn't there anything you could point us to which demonstrates a rebellious attitude?
LECH: ... There was a week-and-a-half my sophomore year of college during which I didn't do a stitch of homework and instead spent my time trying to learn from Yes & Know books.
ANNOUNCER: Pardon?
LECH: You know, the ones with the invisible ink pens where you...
ANNOUNCER: No... Yes, no, I'm aware of what they are, but I was hoping for something a little more... Well, do you think you can remember exactly why you were revolting against the academy?
LECH: Of course. I was sitting at our new cappucino bar with two friends one day, when we saw a college tour go by. I thought of how they would return en masse to the admissions office, which in my mind was beginning more and more to resemble a grazing pasture for cows, the corner interview rooms the slaughterhouses, where the rest of the complacent yet nervous herd awaited their fate and wondered why it took their buddies so long to come out of the big boss's "office"... But my thought was interrupted by the end-of-class buzzer -- brrring!! -- which sent hordes of students marching down the hill to the lunchroom, and I thought, "Academia is nothing more than a meat market!" Thus was my first slogan and the germ of the revolution born. My friends and I then surmised that tests and papers were nothing more than the administration's way of getting its lackeys to test how "plump" our minds were before they sent us out to the killing floor that is the real world! [He gets a thought.] Ooh! That's a good one -- "The killing floor which is the real world..." Shoulda thought of that twenty years ago. Ah well.
ANNOUNCER: Yes, but did you really take this analogy seriously? You really thought there was something to fight for in it?
LECH: Are you familiar with the saying: "You can take the dissident out of Russian, but you can't take the Russia out of the dissident?"
ANNOUNCER: No.
LECH: I coined it.
ANNOUNCER: I'm sure you didn't....
LECH: Ah ah! Let's not fight. I did.
ANNOUNCER: Well what does it mean?
LECH: It means that we were weaned on Russian literature, it's all we knew... We had been taught from the get-go that there's always something against which one can dissent.
ANNOUNCER: ... I see. But now you're a professor, and you teach a class on the history of dissidence.
LECH: Absolutely.
ANNOUNCER: Why the shift?
LECH: Because nowadays its too en vogue to criticize the academy, the canon, distribution requirements, blah, blah....
ANNOUNCER: Yes, but when you were active in 1976 you had the precedent of the student rebellions before you about the Vietnam War. I hardly see originality being a concern of yours.
LECH: First off, they were making a political statement, with a critique through academic channels, as a means. We were criticizing academic politics as an end. Secondly, it's not a question of originality, just one of numbers. It's no fun to dissent and be a non-comformist if everyone's doing it.
ANNOUNCER: So you're basically dissenting against dissent now?
LECH: Not at all, I'm merely conforming.
ANNOUNCER: Yes, but in this case, isn't "conforming" an act of dissent?
LACH: Of course not, since I am making an active choice to quote-unquote conform, which is the exact opposite of dissent.
ANNOUNCER: Yes, but language is subjective, and with your acceptance of a tenure-track position you are running more against the grain than any of your contemporaries.
LECH: Yes, well... It's my intention to. I'm trying to foment a revolution.
ANNOUNCER: I thought you were "conforming."
LECH: Of course not! You should know that a dissident never sticks to one ideology and modus operandi, it's too easy to be tracked and caught!
ANNOUNCER: So you're saying that since I caught you in a contradiction you're switching your mode of thought.
LECH {too caught up to really hear the question]: I am starting a revolution of opposites! To dissent will be to conform, and vice versa! To posit that you are speaking the truth will be tantamount to admitting fallacy! To order a double grande mocha latte will mean you want a weak, short Americano!
ANNOUNCER: Excuse me, comrade Fibinski, it seems we've gotten a bit off of the beaten path, so to speak. Now, if we could take a moment to calm down {Fibinski is panting], I'd like to discuss your book.
LECH: Yes, of course, anything, of course.
ANNOUNCER: I understand it was quite an ambitious, experimental project...
LECH: Yes, it was my magnum opus! A 700-page book in which I never once used the letter "t"!
ANNOUNCER: And why such an omission?
LECH: You see, it was very clever... A critique of totalitarian regimes... Without a "t," wewoul pronounce "Stalin" -- who is synonymous with the worst kind of totalitarianism --we would pronounce "Stalin," "Salin." And if you say that with a thick enough Russian accent, it sounds like "sullen," which is my covert way of equating stalinism with sullenness and despair. Didn't you get the tone of forlornness that pervaded the book?
ANNOUNCER: Actually, it was just boring.
LECH: Yes! Well, that was intentional, too, so that only those truly interested in fighting the regime would read the whole thing, and that those in power wouldn't know what was going on.
ANNOUNCER: Except that I heard it had been banned...
LECH: True, in a manner of speaking. You see, I was teaching it as a text in my class when I realized that it was the only thing we were reading that hadn't been banned, so I forbade my students from reading it.
ANNOUNCER: You banned your own book?
LECH: So what if I did?
ANNOUNCER: It's just interesting, that's all. I mean, if I'd written a book like that I'd want as many people as possible to read it. It's quite impressive that you were able to fill 700 pages without once using a word that had a "t" in it.
LECH: Oh no, I think you misunderstood... I just didn't put the "t"s in any of the words in which they belonged.
ANNOUNCER: ...I see. Well, it appears that our time is almost up. Are there any last slogans that you want to share with tour audience before we leave?
LECH [Proudly}: A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!
ANNOUNCER: Any that you've written? LECH: None that I can think of.
ANNOUNCER: Then we'll wrap it up. This has been "Dissent in the Air;" today's guest was Lech Fyodorovich Fibinski. Lech, do you have any plans for the immediate future now that you're no longer a dissident?
LECH: I'm going to start filling in the "t"s in all of my books.
ANNOUNCER: Very good. You heard it here first, folks, get the "T-less" copies of Lech's book before it becomes a collector's item, and we'll see you back here in a week. Until then, this is been a broadcast of the National Public Radio.
Outro: Music.