DUCKS DON’T PLAY ACCORDIONS

Structure is combination. Yet some things don’t combine. This was the problem facing a gathering of philosophers, sociologists, management scientists, and other vagrants as they clustered about in an unsuspecting diner. As they cowered in the uncompromising leer of the diner, great issues were raised like umbrellas. Stern logics and stealthy quips stalked warily among the hamburgers and coffee. One of the philosophers noted that in theory, all elements, anything whatsoever, in any form, ought to be able to interact in any form, but they don’t. As he gnawed pedantically on his teething ring as part of his community service, the others absorbed this information. They asked for an example.

“Well,” he said, “Ducks don’t play accordions.”

As usual when a profound truth is uttered, nobody knew what to do with it. Also as usual, a sociologist showed the way. Sociology is a much neglected science, and despite the frequently stated theory that sociologists would be employable if they had something to work with, there are those who feel sociology would be better as a lost art than a practiced one. At least that way sociologists could be employed, if only to find out what happened to it.

The sociologist, deeply conscious of this role, saw in the statement that an unjust society had denied ducks their rights and place in the wider community. A management scientist commented that he’d once seen people not playing accordions, either. Clearly, said an economist, some big socio-economic phenomenon was coming into play.

Another philosopher, a grimmer, less nibbling one, said that this problem was bigger than mere humanity. Sticking to the original precept that some things just don’t happen, he was faced, both as a professional man, and as a conceptual spittoon, with the awful reality. The original proponent agreed. They were clearly being oppressed by a tyrannical state of existence which deprived people, and even ducks, of their possible combinations.

It’s an interesting point that where there’s an effect, any cause will do, until proven otherwise. The beauty of the idea of a ruthless reality in which dear little ducks were unable to play accordions appealed mightily to those who felt obliged to be oppressed by something. It also appealed to those whose idea of a great time was the further concept of a social upheaval based on justice for accordions, ducks, and anything else which might need it.

Naturally, everyone present then disagreed emphatically about how to deal with this problem. The management scientists, trained from the agar plate to contribute to discussions, felt that it was a management problem, requiring study by experts. The philosophers said that there was no point studying it until they knew what they intended to achieve. A passing zoologist, deeply haunted by the fact that she’d spent years among accordion-less birds in the park where she lived, resolved to invent a means of explaining this terrible problem to the oppressed ducks. The sociologists, outraged, demanded that she refrain from destabilizing the duck social structures until they were at least able to offer the ducks some sort of panacea.

The meeting broke up acrimoniously, as many people prefer they should. The various groups had their courses of action imprinted on them like a newborn chick following a tractor in the belief that it’s its mother. The philosophers went to see Socrates, at his laundry. Socrates was quite a lot less dead than ancient history had suggested, and had been operating the laundry for some two thousand years, and was building up quite a business. People didn’t come to get their clothes cleaned, as such; they came to argue about them.

The philosophers were a little shy about approaching Socrates with this problem. They’d studied his works and complained about their collars with him, but they never knew quite how he’d react. They explained their idea, and waited. Socrates folded a shirt meaningfully. There was a risk that he’d wash socks at them, which meant that he was trying to formulate an argument in a way that they’d understand it.

Fortunately for their peace of mind, he simply looked at them. He said,

“It seems to me that if ducks and accordions were a natural combination, we would be faced with the situation that a sympathetic society, having an appropriate technology of duck-based accordions, with a concurrent ecology of accordion-prone ducks would be the minimum requirements. Since we have the none of the criteria, it may be that a deficiency exists in the application of the social and technological components. My suggestion is that it would be advisable to ask the ducks what they think about the situation prior to any impulsive action. At least ethically, we are obliged to consult with them and hear their views prior to foisting upon them a musical vocational training scheme. There is also a risk that by limiting the concept to accordions we’re minimizing the possible benefits. Perhaps, for example, they’d prefer to play violins.”

The philosophers duly returned to their universities and began a desperate, if dignified, search for means of communicating with the ducks. In this vast undertaking they were greatly assisted by the management scientists, who had unearthed a person who was proficient in communication with ducks, if only at sign-language level, and some people who owned accordions and were prepared to teach ducks how to use them.

The philosophers’ work was however seriously buffeted by the machinations of the sociologists. Wildly reckless now that they had something to do with anything, the zealots among the sociologists had begun a campaign of rallies, involving the burning down of several cities and a plague of conceptual cartels in chat rooms. The nightly news was saturated with incidents of their activities.

As the fires flickered in the semi-distance, and hordes of well-informed refugees spilled onto the freeways, people were regaled with the social justice implications of a universe in which neither ducks nor accordions were allowed to fulfill their rightful roles. Other issues arose from this debate. What about badgers that didn’t ride motor scooters, or oil tankers which didn’t play balalaikas? Was this not a base, willful denial of demographic interactive set theory? Didn’t statisticians have to earn a living somehow? Motor scooter manufacturers, some badgers, and a few of the more aesthetic oil tankers and statisticians were soon onside. (The balalaikas refused to comment.)

Socrates, who’d recently patented a means of removing idiots from business premises, and was watching the tides of money roll in, shocked his clientele (and some of the less self righteous socks) by beginning to wash socks on public broadcast. He said nothing, just washed socks.

Nobly the philosophers continued their work in deep fortified underground bunkers. Socrates continued to silently wash socks. A generation staggered by, and then even politicians began to get involved. Their studies in the new tent city/shanty town universities had made dealing with the issues unavoidable, and they were determined to cash in. A series of legislative committees, based on high moral and ethical standards, began to study the principles of combination of social elements.

Some of the more pragmatic agencies in government managed to get a better grip on the new social imperatives than others. NASA, for example, suggested that there might be on other worlds a means of encouraging ducks and accordions to “get it on, real time.” There was a few trillion they otherwise wouldn’t have had. The welfare agencies, slightly more folksy, insinuated the idea that people without lives were almost as bad as ducks without accordions. Medical research coyly muttered something about the things not happening strangely resembling the things that weren’t being done, and further trillions were heaped upon them. Other people began washing socks. There was by now something infinitely reassuring about a washed sock.

Then a terrifying revelation, sufficient even to waken management science from its doze among the roses. They still couldn’t talk to the ducks, although things had improved to the point that they could play chess with them. They could, however, talk to the badgers, and when it happened that in the course of discussing a scooter franchise, the badgers mentioned that some of the ducks were interested, it was outrageously theorized that maybe the badgers could talk to the ducks instead. A few decades of debate followed as this possibility was investigated and some of the more voluble philosophers, management scientists, and sociologists were sedated.

No, they decided. There was by now too much money involved to solve the problem. Whole national budgets would be disrupted, and schools and law courts might have to reopen. In fact, the whole world would have to be rearranged. Unthinkable. So they didn’t.

The incidence of sock washing meanwhile escalated into a major human activity. In the context of a society dedicated to helping ducks play accordions, it made sense. Sock-based franchises sprang up on a scale not seen since the first covert meeting between a vengeful sesame seed bun and an American Pickle. Sock washing became the first domestic activity to become an Olympic sport. Socks became an integral part of human mating rituals. Psychiatrists soon realized that Freud had got it all wrong, and instead of antidepressants proscribed socks. The suicide rate went down alarmingly, particularly when a new breed of wool sock with extra padding came on the market. Socrates still hadn’t said a word, and his was by now the top rating show on all forms of broadcast media.

Humanity soon outgrew its little world, and both it and its socks reached for the stars, partly because starless socks were considered an uncombined obscenity, and partly because the socks were now taking up so much space. They crossed the intergalactic voids together with their Earthly brethren, the badgers, the scooters, the balalaikas, the oil tankers, and various other seemly companions. No ducks, though. They still couldn’t talk to them, and hadn’t been able to persuade them, and the ducks were still accordion-less. The descendants of the philosophers were philosophical about it, and decided that it was probably all the accordions’ fault for being so antisocial.

Humanity and its socks colonized, philosophized, and on certain days held state functions to commemorate the philosopher who’d started it all. Apart from a slight war in which the socks demanded acknowledgement of their status, a strange peace prevailed among the far-flung human race. The socks were duly acknowledged, and the expansion continued untroubled.

The only person left on Earth, in fact, was the zoologist, who’d eked out a shuddering existence laminating breadcrumbs for some of the more souvenir-minded ducks. They put them in prominent positions on their jet skis, racing cars, and private jets. She’d become a bit of a celebrity in duck circles, which led to the ducks feeling they could trust her.

By sheer chance, two events happened on the same day. As the giant intergalactic socks cruised majestically in the vicinity of Socrates’ Big Sock Yard, the passengers and crew were astonished to see a large alien vessel. The aliens, resembling music teachers, boarded the vessel with quite a lot of sock-related ceremony. Cultural notes were exchanged, and niceties dripped through the unfathomed depths of eternity. The conversation eventually led to esoterica like “What brings you out here” and other trivialities. Humanity, whose honesty was by now becoming a serious problem, answered without reservations, “Well, mainly because ducks don’t play accordions”.

The zoologist, after a particularly rewarding day of laminating bread crumbs, sat peacefully among her works, dreaming of an unlimited supply of crusty breads. A duck approached, a duck she knew to be fond of some of her more ambitious efforts, entered her shop and asked, “Do you have any accordions?”

This particular duck was the sort that would get interested in the idea of ducks playing accordions. The other ducks, well aware for generations of the idea, hadn’t really seen why they should, just to satisfy some human idea of universal behavior. They’d just played dumb and avoided the issue.

She’d told the duck that there was a whole planet full of them, and that the ducks could help themselves. He was a persuasive duck, and their former reservations were soon overcome. Accordion mania gripped the ducks. They quickly figured out intergalactic travel, and pursued the humans, advising in lengthy missives that they could now play accordions, and humanity, enchanted, welcomed their long-deprived Earthly cousins.

It was soon evident that the difficulty with accordion-playing ducks was that they didn’t know when to stop. In some cases there was some doubt if they knew how to stop. The aliens were starting to teach them new material, too, so things were getting rather grim. Socrates was approached by a deputation of socks and humans to ask what they should do, given the case history. He spoke for the first time since beginning his sock washing marathon.

“Well, the original problem with the whole idea was that it was expressed as how to make it possible for ducks to play accordions. At no point did anyone get around to considering whether they wanted to play accordions, nor was due weight given to the fact that they’d managed for millions of years to avoid playing accordions. The mere theory that things can combine doesn’t mean that they should. I said nothing because I was pretty sure that humanity would follow its usual tendency to develop any idea into an absurdity, at the expense of real problems. As it happened, all the real problems were soon fixed because they were lost in the course of the entire species becoming obsessed with making ducks play accordions. Poverty, disease, crime, media psychology: all these were simply relegated to yesterday’s issues. I didn’t want to interrupt the process by adding logic to an illogical situation. The problem now, good people and socks, is: “Should ducks play accordions?”

He paused, and smiled. He wasn’t going to explain the logic of that one, either.