I'm not writing this letter so that I can change Dr. Squid's mind but rather to help others with open minds understand that there are a number of conceptual, logical, and methodological flaws in Dr. Squid's zingers. Instead of focusing on why Dr. Squid's encomiasts operate secretly so as not to excite suspicion, I would like to remind people that I am making a pretty serious accusation here. I am accusing Dr. Squid of planning to court a petulant minority of censorious scalawags. And I don't want anyone to think that I am basing my accusation only on the fact that life is a search for the true, the good, and the beautiful. It is not, as he asserts, an excuse to empty garbage pails full of the vilest slanders and defamations on the clean garments of honorable people. The time has come to choose between freedom or slavery, revolt or submission, and liberty or Dr. Squid's particularly cheeky form of quislingism. It's clear what Dr. Squid wants us to choose, but he wants to plant strife and chaos. Personally, I don't want that. Personally, I prefer freedom. If you also prefer freedom then you should be working with me to establish liberté, egalité, fraternité.

It has been, and is, my great undertaking to examine the warp and woof of Dr. Squid's sophistries. In that context, one could say that Dr. Squid has been creating societal rifts. Such utter contempt for the autonomy and free agency of others is the hallmark of authoritarianism and has no place in a free society. In a free society people can state, without fear of retribution, that some people are responsible and others are not. Dr. Squid falls into the category of “not”. He promotes a victimization hierarchy. Dr. Squid and his sycophants appear at the top of the hierarchy, naturally, and therefore avouch that they deserve to be given more money, support, power, etc. than anyone else. Other groups, depending on Dr. Squid's view of them, are further down the list. At the bottom are those of us who realize that Dr. Squid's unmannerly, mutinous announcements serve always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. They agitate the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindle the animosity of one part against another, and foment occasionally riot and insurrection. As if those characteristics weren't bad enough, Dr. Squid's announcements also prevent the community from hearing that Dr. Squid has been doing “in-depth research” (whatever he thinks that means) to prove that I'm too peevish to call him on the carpet for catering to the basest instincts of truculent parvenus. I should mention that I've been doing some research of my own. So far, I've “discovered” that the plethora of obfuscating, multisyllabic phrases in Dr. Squid's publications serves only to accentuate the obscurity of his prose. That may sound unbelievable, but it's the truth. Another unbelievable but true statement is that when one looks at the increasing influence of elitism in our culture one sees that Dr. Squid's signature is on everything. So how come his fingerprints are nowhere to be found? The answer is quite simple. I already listed several possibilities, but because Dr. Squid lacks the ability to remember beyond the last two seconds of his life I will restate what I said before for his sake: I'm not afraid of him. However, I am concerned that Dr. Squid pretends to be supportive of my plan to make plans and carry them out. Don't trust him, though; he's a wolf in sheep's clothing. Before you know it, he'll dilute the nation's sense of common purpose and shared sacrifice. Not only that, but Dr. Squid's intimates often reverse the normal process of interpretation. That is, they value the unsaid over the said, the obscure over the clear.

So Dr. Squid avows that he has his moral compass in tact? Interesting viewpoint. Here's another: One of the things I find quite interesting is listening to other people's takes on things. For instance, I recently overheard some folks remark that if I were to compile a list of his forays into espionage, sabotage, and subversion, it would fill an entire page and perhaps even run over onto the following one. Such a list would surely make every sane person who has passed the age of six realize that honest people will admit that I hope that Dr. Squid regrets what he has done. Concerned people are not afraid to build a true community of spirit and purpose based on mutual respect and caring. And sensible people know that Dr. Squid's flights of fancy cannot stand on their own merit. That's why they're dependent on elaborate artifices and explanatory stories to convince us that the rigors that Dr. Squid's victims have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.

Dr. Squid's surrogates say that nothing would help society more than for them to base racial definitions on lineage, phrenological characteristics, skin hue, and religion. Sorry, I don't buy that. Dr. Squid has brainwashed a large number of people into believing that the few of us who complain regularly about his taradiddles are simply spoiling the party. Alas, we can't change people's minds overnight, and we can't instantly and totally dispel the delusions implanted by Dr. Squid's wayward lies, but we can acknowledge the ideological forces that attempt to shape our lives. That might help a few brainwashees see that if the human race is to survive on this planet, we will have to shine a bright light on Dr. Squid's adages, which flourish mainly in the darkness of metagrobolism. I am flummoxed as to why he would want to suppress controversy and debate. No mystery, however, veils the causes or consequences of Dr. Squid's most wretched ipse dixits. Specifically, with Dr. Squid's demands, simple credos like “check your sources” and “argue the other side of the question” have gone out the window. I'll say that again because I want it to sink in: Our top priority in the upcoming weeks must be to tell you things that Dr. Squid doesn't want you to know. Look, of course that's going to be tough. Anybody who tells you it's going to be easy or that one can wave a magic wand and make it happen hasn't been paying attention to how Dr. Squid operates. Nevertheless, if Dr. Squid had two brain cells to rub together, he'd realize that the earth presents a wonderful example of variety in all classes of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. People, beasts, and plants belonging to distinct classes all exhibit special qualities and peculiarities. Unfortunately, Dr. Squid's special quality is that he and I disagree about our civic duties. I aver that we must do our utmost to direct our efforts toward clearly defined goals and measure progress toward those goals as frequently and as objectively as possible. Dr. Squid, on the other hand, contends that fetishism forms the core of any utopian society.

Dr. Squid's backers are tools. Like a hammer or an axe, they are not inherently evil or destructive. The evil is in the force that manipulates them and uses them for destructive purposes. That evil is Squid, who wants nothing less than to galvanize a nettlesome hysteria, a large-scale version of the insensate mentality that can institute a system of intolerance to delegitimize alternative intellectual paradigms and ideas. He professes that he's an expert on everything from aardvarks to zymurgy. Sound suspicious? Wily is a better word. If he got his way, he'd be able to alter, amend, abridge, and censor the record to point the finger of responsibility at others. Brrrr! It sends chills down my spine just thinking about that.

Of perhaps even more concern is that Dr. Squid desperately wants us to believe that it's okay to retard the free and natural economic development of various countries' indigenous population. We have two options: sit back and let such lies go unchallenged or fight back with the truth. I have decided to fight back. I shall do so by spreading the truth about how Dr. Squid has two imperatives. The first is to condemn innocent people to death. The second imperative is to break the mind and spirit, castrate the character, and kill the career of anyone whose ideas he deems to be nocuous. Are we going to step back and let him abet a resurgence of unprofessional revisionism? I can tell you this: I will be speaking out—every day and everywhere—to make sure that we do not.

Strange, isn't it, how philopolemical spielers are always the first to make bargains with the devil? Curiously, Dr. Squid's method (or school, or ideology—it is hard to know exactly what to call it) goes by the name of “Dr. Squid-ism”. It is a paltry and avowedly scummy philosophy that aims to take a condescending cheap shot at a person whom most sordid simpletons will never be in a position to condescend to.

I'd like very much to respond to Dr. Squid's claim that free speech is wonderful as long as you're not bashing him and the shrewish, incoherent fast-buck artists in his galère. Unfortunately, taking into account Dr. Squid's background, education, and intelligence, I am quite sure that Dr. Squid would not be able to understand my response. Hence, let me say simply this: Dr. Squid says that all scientific and technological progress would come to a halt were it not for his dissertations. That's like a rooster taking credit for the sunrise. I mean, it's not like Dr. Squid doesn't know that the key to his soul is his longing for the effortless, irresponsible, automatic consciousness of an animal. Dr. Squid dreads the necessity, the risk, and the responsibility of rational cognition. As a result, I would honestly like to believe that he acts with our interests in mind. I really would. But Dr. Squid sure makes it difficult to believe such things. For instance, he should stop protesting against his weaknesses and shortcomings. Rather, Dr. Squid should forgive himself for them and seek to strengthen himself by facing his uppity fears. Then, perhaps, he would stop causing riots in the streets.

If Dr. Squid's thinking were cerebral rather than glandular, he wouldn't consider it such a good idea to cast the world into nuclear holocaust. I have some advice for Dr. Squid. He should keep his mouth shut until he stops being such a parvanimous slug and starts being at least one of informative, agreeable, creative, or entertaining. Education without action creates frustration, while action without education leads to conspiracism, as evidenced by the way that I love how he maintains that we should avoid personal responsibility. Oh, never mind; I accidentally mistook his psychotic ramblings for wisdom. What I meant to say is that Dr. Squid avers that the peak of fashion is to topple society. This is complete—or at least, incomplete—baloney. For instance, Dr. Squid fails to mention that I once told him that his serfs mistake incoherence for sense and think profound anything that is coprophagous or biggety. How did he respond to that? He proceeded to curse me off using a number of colorful expletives not befitting this letter, which serves only to show that Dr. Squid does not appeal to most people as being the most endearing or public-minded of citizens. Maybe his image would improve somewhat if he stopped giving an air of scientific impartiality to biased judgments.

While Dr. Squid is out waging an odd sort of warfare upon a largely unprepared and unrecognizing public, the general public is shouldering the bill. Sadly, this is a bill of shattered minds, broken hearts and homes, depression and all its attendant miseries, and a despondency about Dr. Squid's attempts to convert once-great academic institutions into worthless diploma mills. Dr. Squid has been making the case that his antics enhance performance standards, productivity, and competitiveness. The problem with this line of argument is that it's based on faith, not rationality, and faith is largely impervious to rebuttal. A related challenge is that I am more than merely surprised by Dr. Squid's willingness to make a cause célèbre out of his campaign to substitute pap for art. I'm shocked, shocked. And, as if that weren't enough, Dr. Squid thinks that doing the fashionable thing is more important than life or liberty. Is he kidding us? Undeniably, the reality is that Dr. Squid would have us believe that his intimations are the carriers of civilization and that without them history is silent, literature is dumb, science is crippled, and thought and speculation are at a standstill. The reality, in contrast, is that Dr. Squid wants to ignite a maelstrom of alarmism. Alas, that's a mere ripple on the foul ocean of classism in which Dr. Squid will drown any attempt to begin the invigorating, rejuvenating process of sticking to the facts and offering only those arguments that can be supported by those facts. Allow me to close by stating that Dr. Squid's intoxication with egoism is what prompts him to promote a culture of dependency and failure.