From: Nikola Chubrich
To: Ernst J. Meyer
Subject: Re: Covid Testing
It was quite an excellent thanksgiving, in fact. There was nice conversation over the table {---->} (the food was so-so: the Whole Foods prepared turkey dinner cost $140 for eight people, and was not especially good: like much prepared food, over-salted: and typical of Whole Foods prepared food for being so-so and overpriced: a winning combination rarely found elsewhere outside of airports. I wonder how they get away with it? (I mean, it wasn't that bad. (And lest you chastise me for wasting money----which chastisement, let us establish, you are entirely welcome to undertake any time you wish----I should note that this particular mean plan was my mother's idea; in fact she insisted on it; and for reasons we need not go into here, she was right.).).) {<---}: we spoke about, among other things, Nathaniel's future plans, and Sabine's plans for law school. 

It occurs to me that this topic may be of some interest to you, though I am not minded to go into it tonight. 

Here, however, I find myself moved to engage in Protokollischersprach, before finishing this letter, and perhaps even saying good night (you are welcome to write back at any hour, of course, but I can't call from here at this hour). 

(What, by the way, would be the actual German word for what I mean here? I am finding myself tempted into Fäkkerdeutsch once again. And if there is none such, would you like to provide one?)

Namely: just when is it appropriate to say things about other people? Nathaniel told me much on Wednesday about his plans. He did not say, "tell no-one"; but nor did he say, "tell your parents."

How might we approach such a question? It seems to me that talking about other people is a part of ordinary human intercourse: indeed, in some circumstances (unless one is in the company of people who all enjoy "tearing up the floorboards": in which case, there is always something to talk about), it is hard to imagine finding anything else to talk about. Outside the company of meteorologists, after all, the weather is rarely a fecund subject. But other people, when one is speaking to people, is very often a fecund subject.

Of course one can talk about oneself, and one's interlocutor, but among my parents that subject matter is mostly played out.

Now the issue is, that talking about other people can be pernicious, and have unpredictable ramifications: we are speaking of the problem of gossip here. But when my mother asks what Nathaniel's plans are; and I know very well that she is not "a gossip" herself (though, mortifyingly, I must confess that my Dad sometimes is: and of course he was present at dinner as well); and I know as well that she regards Nathaniel and Sabine fondly, and wishes them the best, and is not at all averse to making connections for them (for instance, with the Portsmouth Symphony);; then it would seem churlish to reply, in effect if not necessarily in diction, that the subject is none of her business.

Might we be able to conceive a more general protocol for handling this question (I mean the question of whether to speak of, or be silent about, other people)? Rather than feign ignorance, peradventure we were to suggest something like the following?

Here I will put τα for the person or persons spoken of or "told about", τ for the teller of tales, and ρ for the recipient or recipients. And I will put <--> for a relationship. Were we to require further precision, we might put <==> for a relationship of social equality, and <-- or --> for a hierarchical relationship, such as the case might require. (I have no need for these forms now, but it did occur to me that they might be of use to you in any reply you wish to conceive.)

The proposed factors that might argue in favor of speaking about other people would be:

1) If τα <--> ρ is, to the best knowledge of τ, regarded as a good relationship by both τα and ρ.

2) If, furthermore, τ also perceives this to be the case.

3) If τ <--> ρ is a secure relationship, and τ feels no compulsion or temptation to curry favor with or entertain ρ.

4) If ρ has asked τ for news about τα.

5) If ρ is in a position to offer advice or help to τα, and this only in the event of being told the news in question.

I feel this barely scratches the surface of any necessary protocol; 5) especially seems to me to require further elaboration, and I can already imagine that we might require further clauses and further precision within the specification of relationships. But it occurs to me that this question may be of some interest to you. Indeed, might I suggest that this subject area (whatever we might choose to call it), involving as it does tellers of tales, and listeners, or even readers, might be of some interest to any conceivable theory of literature?

We have, for instance, already alluded to the question of whom any literary work is addressed to, and how the writer's conception of who these possible readers might be constrains his output. (Admittedly, you last addressed this subject while speculating about what might account for the Unbesetztsprach of newspaper editorializing: which is hardly literature, at least as it is usually understood.) Though literary works are often fiction {but Xueqin: Truth becomes fiction when the fiction's real}, might this subconscious protocol, whatever it could be, play a role in the aforementioned output constraints?

At any rate, all five of the criteria above were satisfied tonight {we are referring to a letter begun last night and finished this morning}; and so I told tales. I am not claiming that I consciously considered all or even any of the criteria above: my compliance with my parents' request was automatic. But would it not be useful to understand this hidden process better, given the social stakes involved?

The possible reasons for not telling stories are yet to be elucidated, and it occurs to me that they may be of some use in determining what I should tell you about what Nathaniel told me.

N.I.C.

On Thu, Nov 26, 2020 at 9:33 PM Ernst Meyer <ernstmeyer@earthlink.net> wrote:

    Dear Nikola, You should be aware that MA authorities are selective about
    which of the various Covid tests they will accept. Details are on their
    web page. Happy Thanksgiving
    EJM