Platoboy and the Solipsist Search for the Form of Hippopotamusness

Photo by Jonathan Göhner on Unsplash

Dramatis Personae
Platoboy: an enthusiastic believer in Enlightenment values.

Solipsist: a sardonic, captious, humorous nihilist.

Solipsist: Hey Platoboy! What is your favorite Henry James novel?
Platoboy: The Art of the Deal, Solly. Thanks for asking.
Solipsist: Henry James didn’t write The Art of the Deal. The Orangeman did.
Platoboy: Get out of here! The Orangeman? Is there anything he can’t do?
Solipsist: Nope. There is nothing he can’t do.
Platoboy: Can he build a wall?
Solipsist: Absolutely!
Platoboy: Can he build a really long wall?
Solipsist: Fuggin-ay-right, Bubba!
Platoboy: Can he build a wall so long that not even a Mexican drug cartel can pay for it?
Solipsist: Come on P.B., keep it real. Nobody could build a wall that long. Not even the Great Wall, which they say can be seen from the moon, could do that.
Platoboy: So there is something that the Orangeman can’t do.
Solipsist: Nope. There is nothing he can’t do.
Platoboy: Solly, you have just been ground into a fine powder by the table-turning argument.
Solipsist: Well P.B., you had better hope that powder isn’t fentanyl or we’re all dead meat.
Platoboy: Too late, Solly! We are all dead meat.
Solipsist: Not to worry, P.B.; the Orangeman has got this!