Characters:
Professor Quillibrace
Mr Blottisham
Miss Elowen Stray
Blottisham:
I’ve slept on it.
Quillibrace:
I hope meaning didn’t move while you were unconscious.
Blottisham:
Very droll. But I’ve reached a conclusion, and it’s a serious one.
Quillibrace:
They usually are.
Blottisham:
If meaning is perspectival—if it only occurs relative to a construal—then nothing can ever be wrong. Only different.
Elowen Stray:
That does sound troubling when you put it like that.
Blottisham:
Thank you, Miss Stray. At last, some sanity.
Quillibrace:
Before we erect monuments to it, tell me what you mean by “wrong.”
Blottisham:
Incorrect. False. A failure to match how things really are.
Quillibrace:
Ah.
Blottisham:
There’s no “ah” about it. Without wrongness, criticism collapses. Argument becomes taste. Scholarship dissolves into vibes.
Quillibrace:
You’re assuming “wrong” precedes relation.
Blottisham:
It must! Otherwise how could we tell?
Elowen Stray:
Tell what?
Blottisham:
Whether someone has misunderstood!
Quillibrace:
And what is a misunderstanding?
Blottisham:
A failure to grasp the meaning.
Quillibrace:
Whose?
Blottisham:
The correct one.
Quillibrace:
We’re orbiting again.
Blottisham:
Because you won’t land!
Elowen Stray:
When someone misunderstands me, I don’t usually think they’ve failed to access a Platonic object. I think they’ve taken a different path than I expected.
Blottisham:
Expectations are irrelevant. Truth isn’t negotiated.
Quillibrace:
And yet it keeps turning up in conversations.
Blottisham:
If nothing is wrong, then propaganda is just a “perspective.” Lies are just “events.” Surely you don’t want that.
Quillibrace:
I want to be precise about where the wrongness occurs.
Blottisham:
You’re evading again.
Quillibrace:
No. I’m relocating.
Elowen Stray:
Relocating wrongness?
Quillibrace:
From correspondence to consequence.
Blottisham:
That sounds suspiciously ethical.
Quillibrace:
It is suspiciously situational.
Blottisham:
So meaning can’t be wrong, only harmful?
Quillibrace:
Meaning can fail to do the work it claims to do.
Blottisham:
Which is just a softer way of saying wrong.
Quillibrace:
Softer, but sharper.
Elowen Stray:
If I say something that reassures when reassurance is needed, it feels right. If it reassures when action is needed, it feels wrong—even if the words are “true.”
Blottisham:
Now truth is conditional too?
Quillibrace:
Truth has always been conditional. It simply prefers not to advertise.
Blottisham:
This is relativism in a tweed jacket.
Quillibrace:
Relativism says all meanings are equal.
I say meanings are unequally consequential.
Blottisham:
According to whom?
Quillibrace:
According to the situation they actualise.
Blottisham:
So the situation judges us now?
Quillibrace:
It always has. We just pretended the verdict came from elsewhere.
Elowen Stray:
Then something can be wrong not because it fails to match reality, but because it fails the moment?
Quillibrace:
Yes. Or worse—it reshapes the moment in a way that closes possibility.
Blottisham:
You make it sound as though wrongness is something that happens, not something that is.
Quillibrace:
At last.
Blottisham:
I don’t like that at all.
Quillibrace:
Of course not. It means you can’t outsource responsibility to the universe.
Blottisham:
So we’re accountable every time meaning occurs?
Quillibrace:
Only every time it matters.
Elowen Stray:
Which seems to be… often.
Blottisham:
This is intolerable.
Quillibrace:
And yet oddly workable.
(A pause.)
Blottisham:
Then let me say this plainly. If wrongness isn’t guaranteed in advance, then critique is risky.
Quillibrace:
Yes.
Blottisham:
And failure is possible.
Quillibrace:
Yes.
Blottisham:
And meaning might betray us.
Quillibrace:
Frequently.
Blottisham:
Then why persist at all?
Quillibrace:
Because the alternative is silence—and silence is not neutral. It is simply a very loud refusal.
Elowen Stray:
So wrongness hasn’t disappeared.
Quillibrace:
No. It’s just stopped pretending to be eternal.
Blottisham:
I suppose that means I can still be wrong.
Quillibrace:
With admirable consistency.
Blottisham:
Hmph.
Elowen Stray:
But also… capable of doing better next time?
Quillibrace:
That is the entire wager.
End of Dialogue III
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