Free Flynn's World by Gregory McDonald

have.”
    “Remarkable,” Flynn said. “Every such meeting I’ve ever attended has been devoted to career politics. Your little get-together last evening must have been a first.”
    “I really don’t know what this is about, Mr. Flynn—”
    “Nor do I. Trying to get my footing, as it were. What, simply, do people have against Professor Louis Loveson?”
    “For starters, he’s rather the President’s pet.”
    “And that causes resentment?”
    “You might say so. If he weren’t, for example, I might be having lunch at my desk playing a computer game rather than sitting here listening to your grave suspicions regarding university politics. Are you familiar with the game, ‘What if . . . ?,’ Flynn? You know, What if John Kennedy hadn’t been shot? What if—?”
    “No, sir. I have come to assume that is the province of contemporary journalism.”
    The dean frowned. “Loveson’s a good topic for the ‘What if . . . ?’ game. What if he had retired when he was supposed to?”
    “What if, indeed?” asked Flynn.
    “For one thing, his academic chair, the prestigious Samson Chair, would have been vacated.”
    “And awarded to whom?”
    “There are several sterling candidates.”
    “Would your name be among them?”
    “No. I haven’t the reputation.”
    “Loveson did not retire as expected,” stated Flynn. “Last night he indicated to me that was because he feels he must defend himself, his work, by staying on.”
    “Some consider his work indefensible.”
    “Do you?”
    “Oh, it enjoyed its fashion. One might see it as the intellectual swan song of the white male. You know, Western culture tied into a neat package.”
    Flynn nodded. “Again, talking with him last night, I had the impression he cares a great deal for his students. Past, present, and future.”
    “I suspect the old boy feels he must defend them against the barbarians at the gates.”
    “And who are these barbarians?”
    “Anyone who isn’t a white male in the Judeo-Christian tradition. All rather medieval, of course. Anyway, he has damned few students at present. Seven, I think is the number. We have him in the smallest lecture hall available. We’d put him in a telephone booth, if we could still find one with a door on it.”
    “And why does he attract so few students now?”
    “He still believes in the superiority of one idea over another, you see.”
    “Ah! One of those, is he?”
    The dean gave Flynn a sharp look. “He’s still teaching intellectual history, Flynn, the history of ideas as a continuum. As if it were all a straight line. A logical progression.”
    “And history cannot be seen that way?”
    “Well, it can, of course. Rather egocentric, don’t you think?”
    “‘Egocentric.’” Flynn mulled the word.
    “Egocentric.” The dean was enjoying his bite of lamb chop. “Wouldn’t you consider it a luxury to be able to select the ideas which permit you to justify whatever you are thinking at the moment?”
    “Now, wasn’t I taught there’s a difference between being rational and rationalizing?”
    Finished with his two bites of his two lamb chops, the dean seemed exasperated by his peas. “Are you still dealing with such a concept, Flynn? ‘The rational’?”
    “I prefer an idea that works to one which doesn’t work as well. Isn’t that rational?”
    “‘Doesn’t work as well’ in whose judgment?”
    “Mine.”
    “There you are.” The dean smiled. “The egocentric white male.”
    “More an everyman.” Flynn pretended to shiver. “Terrified of chaos.”
    “But what may be chaotic to your view, may not be chaotic to another person’s view.”
    The dean gave up on his peas. “Didn’t you just say something about ‘certainty stunting growth’?”
    “I did. Yes. You have me there.”
    The dean sipped his iced tea. “What are you, Mr. Flynn? Some sort of policeman?”
    “Some sort.”
    “And how much rationality do you see on the streets in your function as a