The Dogmatists

Our inaugural Dogma paper was on Kafka – the room was packed, and W. spoke very movingly of his encounter with The Castle in a Wolverhampton library. I spoke rather ineptly about my encounter with The Castle in a Winnersh Triangle warehouse. – 'What were you on about?' But Dogmatists stick together; a question for one is a question for both. You must stand back to back and fight to the last. Did we win? We lost, says, W., but gloriously.

Our second Dogma paper was on friendship as a condition for thought. W. spoke on Virno, and the Italians. It was a rigorous talk in its way. He spoke of opportunism and cynicism as though they were categories in Aristotle.

Forming a one man ultra-Dogmatist splinter group, I spoke of my friendships, of friendships in which thought was at stake. W. is prompted to add another rule to Dogma: you must always give examples from your own experience. No: the presentation in its entirety should begin and end with an account of your own experience. Of turning points. Trials. Great struggles and obstacles. My life lends itself particularly well to such a rule, W. says. The horror of my life.

Our third Dogma paper was perhaps our pinnacle. Did we weep? Very nearly. Did we tear open our shirts? It was close. Did we speak with the greatest seriousness we could muster – with world-historical seriousness? Of course! And did we take questions for one another like a relay team, passing the baton effortlessly to and fro? Without question! W. spoke of nuns; I about monks. He spoke about dogs; I about children. We thought the very stones would weep. We thought the sky itself would fall. W. invents a new Dogma rule: you should always speak of nuns, and dogs.

In our fourth Dogma paper, we spoke of love, the greatest topic of all, says W. There can be no love in the modern world, W. says. There can be no such thing as love. I spoke of my years with the monks, of divine love and mundane love. I spoke of agape and eros. And then W. spoke of philein, the greatest kind love of love, he said. We were like a tag team, we agreed afterwards. Like two wrestlers succeeding each other in the ring. We should always use Greek terms in our papers, W. says. That should be another Dogma rule: you must use Greek terms you barely understand.