by Tom Stoppard
ANDERSON: In what sense? I am indisputably giving it.
CHAIRMAN: But it is not the paper you were invited to give.
ANDERSON: I wasn’t invited to give a particular paper.
CHAIRMAN: You offered one.
ANDERSON: That’s true.
CHAIRMAN: But this is not it.
ANDERSON: No. I changed my mind.
CHAIRMAN: But it is irregular.
ANDERSON: I didn’t realize it mattered.
CHAIRMAN: It is a discourtesy.
ANDERSON: (Taken aback) Bad manners? I am sorry.
CHAIRMAN: You cannot give this paper. We do not have copies.
ANDERSON: Do you mean that philosophical papers require some sort of clearance?
CHAIRMAN: The interpreters cannot work without copies.
ANDERSON: Don’t worry. It is not a technical paper. I will speak a little slower if you like. (ANDERSON turns back to the microphone.) If we decline to define rights as fictions, albeit with the force of truths, there are only two senses in which humans could be said to have rights. Firstly, humans might be said to have certain rights if they had collectively and mutually agreed to give each other these rights. This would merely mean that humanity is a rather large club with club rules, but it is not what is generally meant by human rights. It is not what Locke meant, and it is not what the American Founding Fathers meant when, taking the hint from Locke, they held certain rights to be unalienable—among them, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The early Americans claimed these as the endowment of God—which is the second sense in which humans might be said to have rights. This is a view more encouraged in some communities than in others. I do not wish to dwell on it here except to say that it is a view and not a deduction, and that I do not hold it myself.
What strikes us is the consensus about an individual’s rights put forward both by those who invoke God’s authority and by those who invoke no authority at all other than their own idea of what is fair and sensible. The first Article of the American Constitution, guaranteeing freedom of religious observance, of expression, of the press, and of assembly, is closely echoed by Articles 28 and 32 of the no less admirable Constitution of Czechoslovakia, our generous hosts on this occasion. Likewise, protection from invasion of privacy, from unreasonable search and from interference with letters and correspondence guaranteed to the American people by Article 4 is likewise guaranteed to the Czech people by Article 31.
(The CHAIRMAN, who has been more and more uncomfortable, leaves the stage at this point. He goes into the ‘wings’. At some distance from ANDERSON, but still just in earshot of ANDERSON, i.e. one can hear ANDERSON’s words clearly if faintly, is a telephone. Perhaps in a stage manager’s office. We go with the CHAIRMAN but we can still hear ANDERSON.)
Is such a consensus remarkable? Not at all. If there is a God, we his creations would doubtless subscribe to his values. And if there is not a God, he, our creation, would undoubtedly be credited with values which we think to be fair and sensible. But what is fairness? What is sense? What are these values which we take to be self-evident? And why are they values?
12. INT. MCKENDRICK’S ROOM
MCKENDRICK is fully dressed and coming round from a severe hangover. His room is untidier than ANDERSON’s. Clothes are strewn about. His suitcase, half full, is open. His briefcase is also in evidence. MCKENDRICK looks at his watch, but it has stopped. He goes to the telephone and dials.
13. INT. ANDERSON’S ROOM
The phone starts to ring. The camera pulls back from the phone and we see that there are two men in the room, plainclothes POLICEMEN, searching the room. They look at the phone but only for a moment, and while it rings they continue quietly. They search the room very discreetly. We see one carefully slide open a drawer and we cut away.
14. THE COLLOQUIUM
We have returned to ANDERSON’s paper. There is no CHAIRMAN on stage.
ANDERSON: Ethics were once regarded as a sort of monument, a ghostly Eiffel Tower constructed of Platonic entities like honesty, loyalty, fairness, and so on, all bolted together and consistent with each other, harmoniously stressed so as to keep the edifice standing up: an ideal against which we measured our behaviour. The tower has long been demolished. In our own time linguistic philosophy proposes that the notion of, say, justice has no existence outside the ways in which we choose to employ the word, and indeed consists only of the way in which we employ it. In other words, that ethics are not the inspiration of our behaviour but merely the creation of our utterances.
(Over the latter part of this we have gone back to the CHAIRMAN who is on the telephone. The CHAIRMAN is doing little talking and some listening.)
And yet common observation shows us that this view demands qualification. A small child who cries ‘that’s not fair’ when punished for something done by his brother or sister is apparently appealing to an idea of justice which is, for want of a better word, natural. And we must see that natural justice, however illusory, does inspire many people’s behaviour much of the time. As an ethical utterance it seems to be an attempt to define a sense of rightness which is not simply derived from some other utterance elsewhere.
(We cut now to a backstage area, but ANDERSON’s voice is continuous, heard through the sort of P.A. system which one finds backstage at theatres.
The CHAIRMAN hurries along the corridor, seeking, and now finding a uniformed ‘FIREMAN’, a backstage official. During this ANDERSON speaks.)
Now a philosopher exploring the difficult terrain of right and wrong should not be over impressed by the argument ‘a child would know the difference’. But when, let us say, we are being persuaded that it is ethical to put someone in prison for reading or writing the wrong books, it is well to be reminded that you can persuade a man to believe almost anything provided he is clever enough, but it is much more difficult to persuade someone less clever. There is a sense of right and wrong which precedes utterance. It is individually experienced and it concerns one person’s dealings with another person. From this experience we have built a system of ethics which is the sum of individual acts of recognition of individual right.
(During this we have returned to ANDERSON in person. And at this point the CHAIRMAN re-enters the stage and goes and sits in his chair. ANDERSON continues, ignoring him.)
If this is so, the implications are serious for a collective or State ethic which finds itself in conflict with individual rights, and seeks, in the name of the people, to impose its values on the very individuals who comprise the State. The illogic of this manoeuvre is an embarrassment to totalitarian systems. An attempt is sometimes made to answer it by consigning the whole argument to ‘bourgeois logic’, which is a concept no easier to grasp than bourgeois physics or bourgeois astronomy. No, the fallacy must lie elsewhere—
(At this point loud bells, electric bells, ring. The fire alarm. The CHAIRMAN leaps up and shouts.)
CHAIRMAN: (In Czech) Don’t panic! There appears to be a fire. Please leave the hall in an orderly manner. (In English.) Fire! Please leave quietly!
(The philosophers get to their feet and start heading for the exit. ANDERSON calmly gathers his papers up and leaves the stage.)
15. INT. AIRPORT
People leaving the country have to go through a baggage check. There are at least three separate but adjacent benches at which customs men and women search the baggage of travellers. The situation here is as follows:
At the first bench CHETWYN is in mid-search.
At the second bench ANDERSON is in mid-search.
At the third bench a traveller is in mid-search.
There is a short queue of people waiting for each bench. The leading man in the queue waiting for the third bench is MCKENDRICK. The search at this third bench is cursory.
However, ANDERSON is being searched very thoroughly. We begin on ANDERSON. We have not yet noted CHETWYN.
At ANDERSON’s bench a uniformed customs WOMAN is examining the contents of his suitcase, helped by a un
iformed customs MAN. At the same time a plainclothes POLICEMAN is very carefully searching everything in ANDERSON’s briefcase.
We see the customs MAN take a cellophane wrapped box of chocolates from ANDERSON’s case. He strips off the cellophane and looks at the chocolates and then he digs down to look at the second layer of chocolates. ANDERSON watches this with amazement. The chocolate box is closed and put back in the case. Meanwhile a nest of wooden dolls, the kind in which one doll fits inside another, is reduced to its components.
The camera moves to find MCKENDRICK arriving at the third desk. There is no plainclothes man there. The customs OFFICER there opens his briefcase and flips, in a rather cursory way, through MCKENDRICK’s papers. He asks MCKENDRICK to open his case. He digs about for a moment in MCKENDRICK’s case.
Back at ANDERSON’s bench the plainclothes MAN is taking ANDERSON’s wallet from ANDERSON’s hand. He goes through every piece of paper in the wallet.
We go back to MCKENDRICK’s bench to find MCKENDRICK closing his case and being moved on. MCKENDRICK turns round to ANDERSON to speak.
MCKENDRICK: You picked the wrong queue, old man. Russian roulette. And Chetwyn.
(We now discover CHETWYN who is going through a similar search to ANDERSON’s. He has a plainclothes MAN too. This MAN is looking down the spine of a book from CHETWYN’s suitcase. We now return to ANDERSON’s bench. We find that the customs MAN has discovered a suspicious bulge in the zipped compartment on the underside of the lid of ANDERSON’s suitcase. ANDERSON’s face tells us that he has a spasm of anxiety. The bulge suggests something about the size of HOLLAR’s envelope. The customs MAN zips open the compartment and extracts the copy of MCKENDRICK’s girly magazine. ANDERSON is embarrassed. We return to CHETWYN whose briefcase is being searched paper by paper. The customs OFFICIAL searching his suitcase finds a laundered shirt, nicely ironed and folded. He opens the shirt up and discovers about half a dozen sheets of writing-paper. Thin paper with typewriting on it. Also a photograph of a man. The plainclothes MAN joins the customs OFFICIAL and he starts looking at these pieces of paper. He looks up at CHETWYN whose face has gone white.)
16. INT. AEROPLANE
The plane is taxiing.
MCKENDRICK and ANDERSON are sitting together.
MCKENDRICK looks shocked.
MCKENDRICK: Silly bugger. Honestly.
ANDERSON: It’s all right—they’ll put him on the next plane.
MCKENDRICK: To Siberia.
ANDERSON: No, no, don’t be ridiculous. It wouldn’t look well for them, would it? All the publicity. I don’t think there’s anything in Czech law about being in possession of letters to Amnesty International and the U.N. and that sort of thing. They couldn’t treat Chetwyn as though he were a Czech national anyway.
MCKENDRICK: Very unpleasant for him though.
ANDERSON: Yes.
MCKENDRICK: He took a big risk.
ANDERSON: Yes.
MCKENDRICK: I wouldn’t do it. Would you?
ANDERSON: No. He should have known he’d be searched.
MCKENDRICK: Why did they search you?
ANDERSON: They thought I might have something.
MCKENDRICK: Did you have anything?
ANDERSON: I did in a way.
MCKENDRICK: What was it?
ANDERSON: A thesis. Apparently rather slanderous from the State’s point of view.
MCKENDRICK: Where did you hide it?
ANDERSON: In your briefcase.
(Pause.)
MCKENDRICK: You what?
ANDERSON: Last night. I’m afraid I reversed a principle.
(MCKENDRICK opens his briefcase and finds HOLLAR’s envelope. ANDERSON takes it from him. MCKENDRICK is furious.)
MCKENDRICK: You utter bastard.
ANDERSON: I thought you would approve.
MCKENDRICK: Don’t get clever with me. (He relapses, shaking.)
Jesus. It’s not quite playing the game is it?
ANDERSON: No, I suppose not. But they were very unlikely to search you.
MCKENDRICK: That’s not the bloody point.
ANDERSON: I thought it was. But you could be right. Ethics is a very complicated business. That’s why they have these congresses.
(The plane picks up speed on the runway towards take-off.)
* Vol. 4, no. 2, Index on Censorship, published by a non-profit-making company, Writers and Scholars International, 21 Russell Street, London WC2.