[by Emmanuelle Hénin]
Philodèmos — I spent a lovely afternoon listening to Plato’s latest podcast on my terrace. And you, Poïkolos, what did you do?
Poïkilos — Me? I walked along the beach of Piraeus, barely disturbed by the passage of a few boats and small boats of migrants who were being rescued, frozen, by the coast guards. I wanted to report the incident on my mobile phone and since I had sunbathed well on the beach, beach, I changed the color of my thumb by activating the feature skin tone modifier. Within hours, my thumb had gone from medium skin tone à medium-dark skin tone! The equivalent of a UV session for free !
Philodèmos — But aren’t you afraid, my friend, that by engaging in these futile occupations, you are encouraging American neoliberalism and consumerism, which are the antithesis of the principles of Republic, and to further defile the purity of the Greek language with all these neologismo worthy of the worst barbaroi ?
Poïkilos — For my part, oh Philodemos, I prefer to follow Protagoras: the more diverse and varied and varied citizens we are, the more different languages we use, the more this wonderful diversity will allow us to deconstruct this dusty and oppressive truth. Plato was demolished by Michel Foukkos and Jacques Derridas: it is time to get up to date… and head to the beach!
Philodèmos — You see, something else bothers me: this six-colored thumb. Indeed, one of two things: either it is supposed to represent all the shades of skin and then, many are missing: the Chinese that Marco Polo will discover, the Red Indians dislodged in ten centuries by Christopher Columbus, the albinos and so on. Furthermore, I do not see a female thumb, nor a childish one, nor a homosexual nor a transsexual one: in short, this thumb seems to me to be a dangerous ferment of dissension in our fragile democracy, where the wise already have difficulty making themselves heard. Or on the contrary, this thumb points towards the Idea of the thumb – according to the teaching of our venerated master – and in this case, it does not refer to the mimesis of the thumb and does not resemble any existing thumb. Or to borrow another typology, which will be developed in twenty-five centuries by Charles Pierce…
Poïkilos — Pierce? The inventor of piercings, this wonderful discovery that allows each and every one to customize their invaluable and irreplaceable soma ?
Philodèmos — No, Pierce the semiologist! According to him, this thumb is not an "icon" (eikon sharply denounced in The Republic et The Sophist), which would resemble a real thumb, nor even an index affected by the object, but rather a symbol, which refers to the object in the mode of abstract generality.
Poïkilos — What bad faith, Philodemos! You're giving me the abstract universalism trick, as if this thumb didn't refer to as many oppressed bodies and varied cultural feelings. There are as many thumbs as there are individuals and you want to reduce them to a normative-fascist and hetero-patriarchal idea of humanity!
Philodèmos — It is you rather who are trying to reduce thumbs to their color, something all the more difficult since, as you have noticed, this can vary according to the good pleasure of Helios, who colors it with his rays. We can, O Poikilos, extend this reasoning to other essences symbolized by diagrams, such as the little green and red men at our crossroads. Would to Heaven that Oedipus had come across one on the road from Delphi to Thebes, he would not have jumped the gun on his dad and committed his dreadful parricide! Too bad for Freud. Now, according to your mimetic argument, only Martians and redskins would have the right and the prohibition respectively to cross the streets of the city.
Poikilos — Indeed, the others will do so at the risk of their lives—or their identities, which is worse. These red and green lights should all be destroyed under article 32635 of the Catechism of Diversity, or Poikilodogma. Everyone should be able to cross at the light corresponding to the color of their skin without being subjected to any cultural assignment, or having to raise it to hitchhike.
Philodemos — Well, all those lights would take up space! Luckily for us, they won't be invented for another two thousand years. But I think I can see another danger, oh Poikilos: doesn't this raised thumb seem to you to constitute a paradigm of the demagogy so feared by our master? Indeed, it is enough for a herd of Internet users (name given to the navigators of the Sophistic Sea) to unanimously raise or lower their thumb, and imposters will reach the height of honors, while honest people will see their careers ruined. Does that seem fair to you, my friend?
Poikilos — And how! Do you prefer that a male and white tyrant, I named a Roman emperor, decides alone on the pardon of gladiators and gladiators by his single upturned thumb (thumb up) ? Is this not a vile sign of imperialist domination over these poor victims from racialized and colonized minorities?
Philodèmos — I grant you, it is even homicide. But can we not imagine an enlightened regime, which would also avoid the pitfalls of demagogy and tyranny? It seems to me, comrade, that you do not do nuance!
Poïkilos — On the contrary, I never go anywhere without my color chart: admire its hundred thousand shimmering colors. Each individual corresponds to a different and irreducible nuance and identity. Isn't that what progress is?
