In the fall of 1979, I discovered the philosophy of Objectivism. This philosophy radically changed my thinking – and daydreaming. My thinking/daydreaming became more “abstract” during the years following 1979. I began thinking/daydreaming more about abstract philosophical principles and less about imaginary concrete events. I also began thinking more about reality, and I began to live in my fantasy worlds to a lesser degree. This development was, however, probably not due exclusively to Objectivism. Because a few months before I discovered Objectivism, I had acquired another value, which kept my mind occupied. That value was my involvement in Amnesty International.
 
1) THE EXTENT OF MY LATER FANTASIES
 
Both the activity of working for the freeing of prisoners of conscience in Amnesty, and the more intellectually demanding work of studying Objectivism, gave my mind material fetched from “reality out there” to “work with”. So, I no longer had as strong a temptation to get lost in fantasy worlds. I did still let my mind “spin its wheels” while I was working. I was now working at an unskilled job in a factory which manufactured measuring instruments. I used machines to produce mechanical components for the instruments. My work was quite simple and monotonous. But I liked those two characteristics of my work! I did not have to concentrate intensely on the work, and that circumstance enabled me to spend my time daydreaming the whole day - all the time that I was working. For some reason I do not remember very clearly what kind of specific fantasies I occupied myself with during the first seven or eight years of the 1980s.
 
I believe that they still consisted in part of fantasies about imaginary “ideal societies”. But I suspect that those fantasies became a smaller part of my mental life. I began to have more “individualistic” fantasies, in which I imagined my putative future successes as, for example, a private investor, an intellectual activist and so forth. I was having some success as a private investor at the time. My stock portfolio was rising in value - since the Swedish stock market boomed during the first four years of the 1980s. So, I imagined to myself that maybe I would one day become rich. I also realized that the philosophy of Objectivism was potential dynamite. I realized that it could radically change the Swedish culture for the better. I spent some of my time projecting how I might be able to personally play a role in that positive development.
 
I also began spending some of my time while at work planning the coming weeks´ spare time work. Since I was now involved in idealistic activities on my spare time, I had to plan my use of the coming weeks´ spare time. I had to plan such things as the writing of letters for adopted prisoners and of activities to raise money for Amnesty and, later, I had to plan the meetings with other students of Objectivism in which we studied that philosophy. So now I was thinking more about reality.
 
Around 1983 I began to frequently write debate pieces on political subjects. My debate pieces advocated capitalism and criticized the welfare state, among other things, using arguments from the Objectivist philosophy. I would spend some of my time during the workdays of the week mulling over, in my mind, what I was going to write in the debate piece which I planned to write during the coming weekend. I would typically write one debate piece each weekend. It was a hobby which I found fascinating and which at the same time, I hoped, would improve the Swedish culture. This was another way in which my interest in Objectivism led to my mind becoming more occupied with reality - and less with pointless fantasies.
 
Towards the end of the 1980s, I remember, I began to develop some fantasies which involved humor. I began thinking about the depressing developments in world politics and I invented humoristic lines of developments which would have, I imagined, improved those developments. I had one fantasy in particular which especially amused me. I will describe it. This fantasy was made possible by my knowledge of the principles of Objectivism, in combination with my crazy-ass sense of humor and my fertile imagination.
 
2) “THE DDT” FANTASY
 
One of the developments which Objectivist philosophers commented on a lot back in the 1980s was the general decline of the culture of the west. The Objectivist philosophers also commented on the decline of the Left, using as concrete examples the rise of such absurdities as the radical feminists (“down with men”!) and the anti-psychiatry movement (“down with sanity”!). I began to pine for a course of development in which the quality of the Left declined so much more rapidly than the quality of the general culture did that the Left began to become universally despised by an outraged public. And I cooked up a humoristic imaginary scenario in which precisely this thing happened.
 
Sometime in the early 1990s I began to hypothesize that rumors had begun to circulate of the existence of a mysterious entity called the DDT. This DDT was rumored to be the world´s most secret, mysterious and deadly spy organization. Nobody knew who they worked for. The CIA had gotten wind of the existence of this mysterious organization way back in the early 1970s. They had no clue as to who the DDT was working for - the Soviet Union, Communist China, North Korea – who the hell was behind this mysterious and nefarious organization? All that the investigators at the CIA knew was that the DDT was “really sinister”. They were rumored to be the force behind all sorts of malicious evil. People wondered what the name “DDT” meant. The most plausible theory was that it referred to that infamous insecticide which had been banned in the 1960s. After all – this secret spy organization was supposed to be “deadly”!
 
Now - there just happened to be one particular determined man of integrity in the vast bureaucracy of the CIA who began devoting himself to the hellishly difficult task of exposing the DDT way, way back in the early 1970s. He worked on the case for 25 long years. He recruited a task force of trusted men to help him. Sort of like the Untouchables.
 
Then right at the beginning of the Clinton administration he happens to get a hot tip. The DDT – it - it is located in the headquarters of the CIA itself! At first our hero cannot believe this piece of information. But the source is credible. And the information fits in logically with numerous little pieces of information which he and his task force have been gathering for years. And he is a man of integrity. So, he makes the difficult decision to follow up this lead. He takes the most trusted members of his task force into the headquarters of the CIA itself at Langley. They look around. They look everywhere. They search every little nook and cranny. But they cannot find any DDT in the headquarters of the CIA!
 
The director of the CIA confronts our hero in the lobby of the headquarters and asks him “What the hell are you and your men doing here?” Our hero answers truthfully “We are looking for the DDT.” The director of the CIA yells at our hero “And you expect to find the DDT here? Are you out of your mind?”
 
Just then a janitor - who is a mere pimple-faced teenager - happens to be walking by and overhears the question. He wants to be helpful. So, he contributes his two bits and volunteers a piece of information “The DDT? Oh yeah. That thing is down in the basement - behind the boiler room!”
 
Our hero and the members of his task force look at each other incredulously. They arch their eyebrows. Our hero thinks for a moment, blinks, shrugs his shoulders and says “Alright, let´s go down there and have a look!” So, our hero, his task force and the director of the CIA all of them together march down into the basement of the CIA headquarters with the janitor leading the way. And lo and behold!
 
When they arrive at the designated place behind the boiler room, they find a steel door with the inscription – “DDT – The Department of Dirty Tricks”. The words are right there on the door. But it had not occurred to anyone in the CIA headquarters to check out what was lurking behind the boiler room for years and years. So – all that time nobody in the CIA had a clue - except for the lowliest of the janitors! And of course, the janitors at the CIA had never been informed that all the operatives of the CIA had been on a hunt for something called the “DDT”. For it never occurred to anyone that the janitors would have any need to know!
 
Our hero signals to his men to draw their guns. He says “OK, men. This is dangerous - but we gotta do this. Somebody just gotta have the guts to take these bastards on. Get ready! On the count of three we go in!” Our hero counts to three, shoots the lock on the door to pieces, pushes in the door and then he and his men storm in with all their guns drawn.
 
Inside they find a bunch of weird looking nerds sitting behind computer screens, in a room full of sophisticated electronic equipment. Most of the nerds behind the computer screens are munching on junk food. The nerds look up, astonished. “Hey! What are you jerks doing?” one of them yells at our hero and his task force. “We want to know what the hell you jerks are doing!” Our hero answers “Just exactly what is this DDT thing?” The first nerd, who is obviously the leader snaps back “That´s top secret!” “What do you mean `It´s top secret?´” – our hero asks. “I mean it´s top secret!” The leader of the nerds snaps back “I only answer to the President!”
 
Well, our hero and his task force are armed with guns, and it turns out that the DDT has no arsenal of super weapons with which to answer. So, it is easy for our hero and his task force to haul the nerds away for interrogation (and I do mean interrogation). The director of the CIA is dumbfounded. He blurts out to our hero “I swear! I didn´t know a thing about this! I knew nothing – nothing!” Our hero answers “Well, there is gonna be the mother of all investigations! Count on it.”
 
Said and done. There is one hell of an investigation. The investigation is public. The world press is present when the detectives present their evidence in front of Congress. And there is plenty of evidence. The headquarters of the DDT was full of documents which revealed everything. And it turns out that the investigation exposes the greatest comedy of all time.
 
It is revealed that the origins of the DDT were to be found way back in the dark, dark days of the Cold War of the 1950s. President Eisenhower had ordered the Bay of Pigs operation in order to solve the problem of Castro in a typically pragmatic manner. President Kennedy (poor guy!) “inherited” the planned operation. And in 1961 the operation is carried out - with predictably catastrophic results. President Kennedy calls in the men responsible for the mess to a meeting in the basement of the White House for the sake of salvaging the situation. The President begins the meeting by saying “Men, this idea was crazy. In fact - it was such a crazy idea that it would have been an absolutely wonderful idea! If only it had worked that is! But you know – we cannot give up on a good idea too easily. Just because we had bad luck on this one occasion should not mean that we abandon such a stroke of genius! I want you guys to institutionalize this modus operandi.”
 
The men responsible stare at each other. This was certainly unexpected. “Here´s my plan” Kennedy continues “First, we form a top secret unit in the CIA with one and only one specialty – dirty tricks!” The men responsible for the Bay of Pigs fiasco stare at each other, they are hardly able to believe their good luck. “And of course,” Kennedy adds triumphantly “I´ve got a perfect name for this new sub-organization in the CIA. We´ll call it The Department of Dirty Tricks! Or - the DDT for short! Isn´t that the perfect acronym for a spy organization?” Everybody in the room agrees. After all - American military bureaucrats just love great acronyms!
 
So, the DDT is set up by President Kennedy, that cynical power-lusting rascal. He arranges things so that the DDT is financed oh-so-covertly – and for that reason no one except for him and the DDT operatives themselves come to know about the fact that the DDT even exists. The purpose of the DDT is to fight evil by means of dirty tricks. Why dirty tricks?
 
Well, President Kennedy had observed that dirty tricks worked really well for the Communists – they did, didn´t they? The Soviet Union succeeded at acquiring the atomic bomb, by means of stealing the required technology from America, didn´t they? And the commies had achieved lots of successes in taking over new countries all over the globe by means of subterfuge - had they not? And the Communists were winning veritable armies of converts among the youth of the West by means of ludicrous lies - right? So - obviously, dirty tricks worked like a charm - if only they were carried out by a real pro in this specific field! So, what America sorely needed to defeat the Commies was a team of specialists in the arcane art of dirty tricks!
 
But the first two years of the DDT did not go very well. The DDT operatives were beginners, so they bungled all the early attempts at defeating the commies by means of dirty tricks. For that reason, President Kennedy decided in the summer of 1963 to close down the DDT! He held a meeting in the basement of the White House at which he informed the head of the DDT of his decision. The DDT´s chief protested. But Kennedy did not budge. The head of the DDT chose not to argue. Instead there was a peculiar look in his eye as he left the meeting. He was up to something.
 
Later that year we see just what he was up to. President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. The head of the DDT would not let his country down! The DDT was too important for America´s national security to be shut down by a numbskull of a president. So, the DDT - in its first “successful” operation - eliminated the traitorous President. Nobody outside of the DDT knew that said DDT lay behind the assassination of Kennedy, but of course. And the DDT created a diversion by spreading rumors that the CIAs rival, the FBI - was responsible for the murder!
 
And since President Kennedy was the only individual outside of the DDT itself who was informed about the accounting chicanery which enabled the financing of the DDT, the DDT continued to receive all the money which it needed in order to keep going - without anyone even noticing. And President Johnson had never been informed about the DDT´s existence by the previous president. So. the DDT now had secure financing - and was accountable to no one - but no one!
 
During the 1960s the DDT honed its skills. In fact, given the fact that the people who ran the DDT were utter pragmatists, the DDT´s operations wreaked havoc in international politics. If only the world´s leaders had known why all those meaningless wars and coups took place!
 
In 1968, an important development occurred. President Nixon was elected. The DDT operatives immediately recognized that the new President was one of them. But they did not dare to take the step of informing him of their own existence. After all, the DDT had been set up by Nixon´s former arch-enemy - Kennedy. So, there was no telling what Nixon´s reaction would be if he were let in on the secret. Better not to rock the boat. Why fix something which ain´t broken?
 
But the DDT did wish to help this wonderfully arch-pragmatist president out. So, the DDT decided that it wanted to get involved in domestic politics. In foreign affairs, its mission had been to fight Communism. In domestic policy, logically enough, it began to fight the New Left. By means of its specialty - dirty tricks! The decision-makers of the DDT recognized that Tricky Dicky, whom the DDT operatives hero-worshiped, was being persecuted by that nefarious New Left. They decided to do something about it.
 
Unfortunately for both the DDT and Nixon, the latter did not know about the former´s existence. So. when he decided to bug Watergate in 1972 he did not make use of the real pros – the DDT. Those pathetic amateurs, “the Plumbers”, whom Nixon employed, bungled their noble mission. Imagine - they could not pull off even such an easy peasy dirty trick as bugging the Democrat party headquarters! If only Nixon had known of the DDT´s existence and had used those real pros to do the job - then he would have remained president! What a tragic setback for pragmatism!
 
However - the DDT lived a life of its own. It set out to fight the New Left in 1969. The head of the DDT had explained his strategy to his men at a meeting in early 1969 – “What is the best way to destroy evil? Well, you discredit it. So - how are we going to discredit the New Left? Easy - we find some clowns on the fringes of the New Left and finance them liberally - so that they flourish. Then those bozos will proceed to give the New Left a bad name. And the public will turn its back on the New Left! That´s going to be our strategy, boys! We will finance the very worst elements of the New Left – finance them to the hilt! By such means we will be able to embarrass the New Left to death!”
 
One of the boss´ underlings, Joe, who had a little bit of courage, spoke up and asked “Is that really a good idea, boss? We finance the worst elements among our own enemies? Won´t that just make things still worse?” The boss answered “You gotta look at this like a true pragmatist, Joe! Our entire modus operandi is dirty tricks! Don´t you know how far the Commies got with dirty tricks? For years and years during the Cold War we were losing. Well, if you can´t beat them, join them! We can´t be too proud to learn from our enemies, can we? `Pride goeth before a fall´ my Sunday school teacher always told me when I was a boy. Getting humble enough to stoop to dirty tricks is the smart thing to do, man!”
 
Said and done. The first bozos which the DDT financed were the loonies in the environmentalist movement. Abandon industrial civilization. Back to the Stone Age! The public would never fall for that one - would they? This operation, the financing of the radical Greens was supposed to lead to the self- destruction of the New Left. But lo and behold! The American culture was so corrupt that the bozos which were financed by the CIA – they flourished - and they gained support. The environmentalist movement became stronger and more radical than ever. So, the DDT held a crisis meeting.
 
“The Greens are spreading like weeds!” Joe whined “What do we do now boss?” The boss answered “Why - we redouble our efforts, but of course! Remember - never give up too easily! Don´t be a quitter! Evidently the bozos we financed this first time around were just not crazy enough. So, we gotta find some still crazier bozos among the New Left. And I got just the solution. The feminists! What could be more futile than to start a war between men and women? I mean, it would lead to the extinction of the species if an attempt to start such a war met with success! That´s so obvious that even the beer-guzzling Joe Sixpacks will realize it. So, the public will never fall for the feminists!”
 
Said and done. The DDT financed the lunatics among the feminists. So, the battle cry “Down with men!” was heard all over the land. But the American culture turned out to be so irrational that it was in fact quite receptive to the demented ideas of the feminists. And so those crazy feminists ran hog wild, all over America.
 
A new crisis meeting was held at the DDT. “Things look really bad out there, boys! The New Left is stronger than ever! We´ve gotta become still more pragmatic for the sake of fixing up this mess, guys – err - and gals, sorry! [Yes – the effects of DDT´s support for the feminists had even reached into the headquarters of the DDT itself! There were now a handful of female pragmatists in the DDT.] So - any of you, err, persons know of any really, really whacko types in the New Left?”
 
The gathered pragmatists knit their brows and did some deep thinking. After a few minutes Joe piped up and said “You know the interesting thing about the animal rights activists is that they are such colossal whackos! Imagine, granting rights to animals! If one of those animal rights bozos got in the way of a hungry lion - would there be a snowball´s chance in hell that the lion came to show any respect for the animal rights activist´s right to life?” The gathered pragmatists all laughed.
 
When the laughter died down, the boss asked Joe a question “I get your point, Joe. But - what´s your angle, Joe? What´s the cash value of your brilliant observation?” Joe answered “Well, have you heard about the vegetable rights activists out there in California? There´s this weird Buddhist sect of hippies I´ve heard about. And they accuse the animal rights activists of being a bunch of miserable hypocrites! Because – how can you prove that vegetables don´t feel pain too, just like animals? How can you prove that a carrot doesn´t feel pain when you slice him up for the sake of making a salad? You see what I am getting at? The vegetable rights activists are still more whacko than the animal rights activists! If the veggie rights crowd gets any traction in the media - then the public will laugh the New Left into oblivion!”
 
The boss sat back in his Naugahyde chair. “You sure are a quick learner, Joe! I didn´t realize that you had it in you!” Joe beamed with satisfaction at this pat on the head. The boss continued “OK, everybody! Let´s get to work! We gotta figure out how we can finance the Veggie Rights movement without being detected. Get moving!”
 
Said and done. The Veggie Rights movement didn´t know what hit them when they suddenly began receiving anonymous donations of hundreds of millions of dollars at a time. But “never look a gift horse in the mouth” - they just made use of the manna from heaven – all of it. America was suddenly inundated with flyers, pamphlets, magazines, books and lectures advocating for the “Rights of Vegetables”. The residents of the Farm Belt were furious and fought back with propaganda of their own. But it turned out that the American culture was so irrational that the Veggie Rights movement began to win. Starvation stared America in the face. “You are what you eat!” – i.e. nothing – non-existent – when the vegetable rights movement has its way.
 
Still another crisis meeting was held in the headquarters of the DDT. “Now what do we do?” the poor boss queried the universe in despair. He was really down in the dumps now! But Joe saved the day “I got it, boss! There´s this really loony – and I mean really loony - outfit up in Alaska.” The boss groaned. He had a pretty good idea of what was coming.
 
Joe continued “I bet you wouldn´t believe this, but there´s this bunch of crazies up there in the wilderness called the Mineral Rights Movement!” The boss broke in “Are you putting me on with a bad pun, Joe? God help you if you are!” Joe answered his boss “No, boss! I´m dead serious! Hear me out. Those bozos argue: `How can anyone prove that mineral deposits are not living creatures? It´s possible that they are alive - isn´t it? Sure, there isn´t any shred of evidence that indicates that mineral deposits are alive. But - so what? Nobody has ever proven that they aren´t – have they? Maybe the birth of mineral deposits occurs when they are formed - whether by vulcanism or sedimentation. And maybe the natural death of mineral deposits occurs when they are subducted into the earth´s mantle. But we humans kill the mineral deposits before their time has come, whenever we mine them. So - we must ban all mining - starting right now! We must respect the right to life of mineral deposits!´ - Now, how’s that for insanity, boss?” Joe was grinning triumphantly. The boss chewed his pen. “Well, assuming that Joe isn´t just bullshitting us about the existence of this piece of insanity - then I guess that we should finance this `Rock-Huggers Movement´! I mean - this one is really way out there!”
 
Said and done. The “Rock-Huggers” activists up there in the Brooks Range suddenly found themselves inundated with money. And they were too smart to look a gift horse in the mouth. None of those bozos tried to find out where all the money was coming from. And they began spending the money on propaganda. The lower 48 were showered with propaganda against “shortening the lives of mineral deposits”. This was a serious threat to the mining industry. But to the great disappointment of the DDT - the New Left did not wind up being discredited. It grew stronger than ever before.
 
The Boss opened the resultant crisis meeting at the headquarters of the DDT down in the bowels of Langley with the perennial question “Now what?” Everybody looked hopefully at Joe.
 
Joe rose to the challenge! “We´ve been trying to make the New Left out to be crazies, haven´t we? Well - what if we dupe the New Left into embracing craziness itself on principle?” “Isn´t that just what we´ve been doing – and look at where that has that been getting us?” A naïve young intern piped up. All the gathered pragmatists, to a man (and woman) glowered at him angrily. “I´m so sorry!” the poor intern squeaked.
 
Joe proceeded to expand on his brilliant idea “Well, have any of you heard of `Psycho Lib´?”
 
“Psycho Lib? What the hell is that?” The Boss inquired.
 
“It´s exactly what the name says it is. There are these nuts who defend `every man´s right to be insane if he wants to be´. They´re a lunatic fringe of the Libertarian movement, which as you all know is one of the weirdest segments of the New Left. And the Psychos, as they´re affectionately called - are the weirdest of the weird. They can hardly even speak coherently. And they argue that no one, absolutely no one, should ever be committed to an institution. Because committing a psychotic to a mental hospital is a violation of his `liberty´, they say. Now, imagine if the New Left comes to be conflated with the psychotics!? The New Left will become viewed as being literally insane! That will be the end of them – for sure this time! Nobody but nobody will follow any wannabe strongman who everybody agrees is literally psychotic - will they?”
 
“A veritable stroke of genius, Joe!” The boss exclaimed. His spirits had been revived. “OK, everybody – let´s get to work! Let´s make the New Left out to be lunatics! Let´s finance Psycho Lib to the hilt!” The pragmatists rubbed their hands and got to work making money transfers with their keyboards.
 
The Psychos suddenly found themselves inundated with mountains of money. Naturally, a lot of the money was spent on booze, drugs and funny hats. But enough of the money found its way into bona fide propaganda, so that Psycho Lib became a real force in the culture. Soon the nation´s fashion models were strolling down the catwalks in straitjackets. Wearing a straitjacket was the new way to be hip! The nation´s economy suffered major damage when Psycho Lib´s agitation for anti-discrimination laws in favor of psychos in hiring met with success. And the conservatives were really pissed off when Psycho Lib began agitating for the right for psychotics to serve in the military.
 
“OK - now what?” Everyone groaned in unison at the next crisis meeting at the headquarters of the DDT.
 
“Well” Joe ventured tentatively “What about the `Right to Death´ movement?”
 
The boss sighed “Well, we´ve tried just about everything, so I guess that now we gotta listen even to this lunatic suggestion.” The gathered pragmatists fidgeted uncomfortably in their Naugahyde chairs. They knew that they had reached the bottom of the barrel – nay, of the bottomless pit.
 
Joe proceeded “Well, the `Right to Death´ movement is the craziest wing of Psycho Lib. The `Deathies´ argue that everyone and his brother and his sister have an inalienable right to commit suicide - `if and when they feel like it´! And the `Deathies´ actually recommend that people do it, in order to shorten the suffering that everyone is experiencing in this screwed-up society of ours. You know - given the way our society is going to the dogs - I almost sympathize with them myself! Now, as I see it - the problem with our former attempts to discredit the New Left was that the crazies whom we financed came to be taken seriously - because our culture was so irrational. Well - maybe that will actually happen even if and when we finance the `Deathies´. But - if we finance the `Deathies´ we will have an inbuilt protection. Because whenever people prove to be so irrational that they fall for the `Deathies´´ depraved propaganda – they will wind up taking care of that problem themselves. You get my meaning – heh, heh?” Joe winked maliciously at the assembled pragmatists.
 
The boss leaned back in his chair, fidgeted and considered the proposal. “Well, we must do something about the New Left. And our modus operandi is, has been and always will be: pragmatic dirty tricks! But do we really want to do this?” he mused. “The stakes are so high. Imagine what might happen if the Deathies´ ideology sweeps the nation? 250 million suicides will be enough to make us go extinct.” The boss sighed. “Well - seeing as we´ve come this far - I guess that there´s no turning back. Destiny favors the brave – doesn´t it? OK, grunts. Let´s just do it!” The boss concluded.
 
All the gathered pragmatists were relieved that someone had gone out on a limb and worked up the courage to reach a decision. The quality of the decision was not really an issue. So, they got to work. Mysterious chunks of money soon began appearing in the bank accounts of the Right to Death movement. The first to profit from this influx of money to the Deathies was the funeral industry. But enough of the Deathies chose to live just a little while longer, for the sake of fighting for their right to die, that America soon was filled with propaganda for every man´s inalienable “Right to Die”. Flyers, pamphlets, magazines, how-to books and even lectures were soon flooding the nation. The lectures were especially dramatic – and fun, provided your sense of humor was depraved enough. For the Deathie lecturers made it a point to demonstrate, in action, that they practiced the virtue of integrity! The teenagers of America turned out in droves at these lectures – for the sake of getting a good bellylaugh when the lecturer concluded the evening´s activities by blowing his brains out up on the stage. But, lo and behold, although the ranks of the Deathie movement were continuously being depleted - so many new recruits were flowing in every month that the movement actually grew, and grew, and grew!
 
You can imagine how pissed off the religious conservatives were! For this was both sacrilege and copyright infringement. “It´s so obvious that these lunatics are free-riding on the reputation of the brand name of our “Right to Life” movement. This is plagiarism. And, moreover, the Deathies are thumbing their noses at us!”
 
The Deathies replied gleefully – “No, no - we´re not thumbing our noses at you. We´re giving you the finger, man! In your faces, Christians! Haw, haw, haw!”
 
The riot police had their hands full when the Deathies demonstrated for the Right to Die and the Right to Life movement turned up to oppose them by means of helping them out. And the riot police were the only ones who were unhappy about dying in the ensuing free-for-alls. The Deathies did not mind dying. That was, after all, what they lived for. And the religious conservatives did not mind dying either - since they “knew” that they would go straight to heaven if they died while killing these blasphemous Deathie Anti-Christs!
 
America had become the laughing stock of the world towards the beginning of the 1990s - which period we had reached by now. The Russians, the Chinese, the Iranis and the entire rest of the world´s scum-of-the-earth just sat back and waited for the Yankees to do the whole job for them! The Pope issued an encyclical against the Americans - who had obviously all been possessed by Satan. And just at the last minute our hero got the tip from the CIA janitor and put an end to this farce.
 
The investigation had consequences. There were endless recriminations back and forth between the Republicans and the Democrats. “Whose fault is this?” was the question which pre-occupied all the politicians. There was finger-pointing all over the place.
 
The Republicans pointed out that the Democrat Bill Clinton was the current President. So, it was his fault wasn´t it?
 
The Democrats responded by pointing out that neither Bush nor Reagan nor Ford nor Nixon had done anything to stop the DDT when they were in power.
 
The Republicans responded by pointing out that it was the Democrat President Kennedy who had started the whole mess.
 
The Democrats responded with: “Oh, don´t put us on! You Republicans can´t seriously deny that America´s arch-pragmatist, Tricky Dicky, would have done, exactly the same thing if only he had won the election in 1960?”
 
The Republicans responded by saying: “Aw, cut it out! You Democrats can´t wriggle yourself out of this jam you´re in by means of asking hypothetical questions! The sorry fact is that it was a Democrat who created the DDT!”
 
And so - the squabble in the sandbox became a regular feature on American TV for months!
 
The American public responded to this by vomiting, figuratively speaking. Pragmatism was what wound up being discredited. For the DDT was undeniably the reductio ad absurdum of pragmatism! And the New Left was discredited at long last also - when it was revealed that it had permitted itself to be duped, manipulated and financed by those bozos at the DDT! The American culture began to heal up. Since the American public had finally woken up to the toxicity of pragmatism they began looking for rational principles to lead them out of the cesspool which America found itself in. Objectivism ushered in a Second Renaissance. Ayn Rand became the most popular cultural icon in America. Leonard Peikoff got his own major network TV talk show. Everybody but everybody read Atlas Shrugged. The world was saved! (Or so I imagined!)
 
3) THE ORIGINS OF MY “DDT” FANTASY
 
The fantasy above is pretty darn ludicrous (well, the author of this fantasy is a recovered psychotic, after all). But you must give me credit for coming up with something highly original - and with a genuine philosophical content! This fantasy was a lampoon of pragmatism - i.e. it was a lampoon of an entire system of philosophy. So, this fantasy of mine showed that I had, by the time the 1990s rolled around, become much less concrete-bound than I had been in the 1970s. And I had become, if possible, even more aware than I was in the 1970s that this was just a fantasy and that it in no way whatsoever was reality. I was aware of the difference. And I was functioning normally. I held a steady job. I managed my own private finances. I kept my apartment in good condition. I took care of my health. Etc.
 
I did not come up with this DDT fantasy in one single piece. It started towards the end of the 1980s with a set of distinct fantasies. I had read about the abysmal state of the American culture in the Objectivist literature. And one of the points that the Objectivist literature made was the pathetic decline in stature of the Left. The New Left was shown by Ayn Rand to be a sort of reductio ad absurdum of modern philosophy. When the former alleged champions of reason, science and industrial civilization turned into grunting hippies that was an eloquent demonstration of the intellectual bankruptcy of our time´s philosophy. It was rather obvious that the ideas of the socialists and the welfare statists just had to suck - if this mob of hippies and yippies and sundry unwashed terrorist “liberation fighters” were their offspring.
 
Towards the end of the 1980s it occurred to me that it would be entertaining if I projected, in the privacy of my own mind, some still more depraved versions of the New Left. For example, I gave thought to the animal rights movement - and I saw that the premises of this movement could logically just as well be used to justify a “Vegetable Rights” movement, and even a “Mineral Rights” movement (I also loved that pun!).
 
Furthermore, I devoted thought to the so-called anti-psychiatry movement, which was hostile to the very psychiatrists who were trying to help the mentally ill. And it occurred to me that the members of the anti-psychiatry movement could very well be called “Psycho Lib”. I liked that name. “Psycho Lib” – the name had a nice ring to it. And then it occurred to me that the New Left could have its own version of the Right to Life movement of the religious conservatives. Only the New Left´s version would be called the “Right to Death” movement! Now that was a nice play on words and a nice caricature of modern philosophy
 
(I.e. – I recalled an essay by the Objectivist philosopher Leonard Peikoff titled “Maybe You´re Wrong”. In this essay Dr. Peikoff projects a hypothetical bozo of a philosopher asking us, as a rhetorical question “How can anyone prove that life is preferable to death?” I thought to myself that it would have been a wonderful joke on David Hume and his philosophical descendants if that bozo of a philosopher gained for himself a movement of bozos who took him seriously!) And - The Right to Death Movement would of course advocate, not that everyone had a right to live but that everyone had a right to die - whenever they “felt like it”! I thought that this idea of mine was hilarious. I split my sides laughing at the Libertarians in the privacy of my own mind. I guess that I had a sick sense of humor. (But if you think that I can´t top this - just wait until you read the next chapter of this book!)
 
Sometime in the early 1990s a way occurred to me to “integrate” these outrageous fantasies of mine. My mind was active, nay hyperactive - so I always had an urge to integrate whichever thoughts passed through my head - not excluding my fantasies. I was sitting in front of my excenter-press one day, toiling away - when I began to think about that antediluvian television program - from the distant reaches of the early 1970s: Monty Python´s Flying Circus. I reminisced about that hilarious idea which the Monty Python gang had come up with, the government body called “The Ministry of Silly Walks”. I began to think to “What kind of government would be still crazier than one with a Ministry of Silly Walks? Well - how about a government which was equipped with a Department of Dirty Tricks? Now, what could a government body with such a crazy name possibly occupy itself with?” Well, I thought to myself, its business would obviously have to be something really sneaky. Like spying!
 
After mulling the idea over for a while, I got a flash of inspiration. What if Tricky Dicky had, way back in the early 1970s, created a top-secret spy organization to fight the Commies by means of dirty tricks? It would be just like Nixon to do a crazy thing like that, I thought to myself. The idea had germinated in my mind. And I continued to think about it. After a while I had it. The entire story which I related above.
 
I replaced the idea of having President Nixon create the DDT, because I thought that it would be such a neat gimmick to have President Kennedy instead create the DDT and then to have his own creation turn on him and assassinate him the moment he developed cold feet and tried to shut the operation down. It would serve anybody right who stooped to create such a monstrosity as a Department of Dirty Tricks! And after all, Kennedy was a pragmatist too – although, perhaps, he was perhaps not quite an equally fervent pragmatic as his nemesis - Nixon.
 
So this fantasy of mine originated in an act of association, triggered by the memory of a concrete which I had perceived in reality many years before (namely a sketch from the Monty Python show) - and then it just grew and grew and grew as I thought about it, and embellished it. I started out with one concrete in reality - and then my imagination enabled me to run with it into the vast wilderness of unreality. I created a parallel universe in my mind for the single purpose of entertaining myself.
 
One specific act of association gave me the idea of the joke about the “Right to Death” movement. I got that crazy idea when I recalled a certain fictitious philosopher in an essay by Dr. Peikoff titled “Maybe You´re Wrong” and combined that concrete memory with my awareness of the real-life “Right to Life” movement. I was amused to no end when I pictured to myself the consternation which would arise among those old fogies in the American Conservative movement if a “Right to Death” movement somehow came into existence and began leeching off one of the Conservative movement´s most well-known slogans!
 
My fantasy was like a psycho´s version of the bad species of epistemology which Ayn Rand called rationalism. I am just immensely grateful that I was never the type of psychotic who was unable to distinguish between his fantasies and reality. For, then I would have found myself living in some hellishly weird universes, figuratively speaking! As it was, I was able to enjoy my weird DDT fantasy due to the reassuring fact that I knew all along that it was - Thank God! - not for real.