Page 77 - Big Idea

The Big Idea – Act 3

RIVAL 2: Uh, I guess so.

RIVAL 1: Now, along comes a guy with a plan that promises to fulfil
that fantasy without exposing its weakness. Instead he concentrates
on the other two hidden motives, what people don’t want, and what
they will put up with. He shows them that they have been putting up
with what they don’t want, and gives them a way out: The Big Idea, a
new form of social organization eliminating all those bad things. But
a realistic person like me knows that there will always be things to put
up with, unpleasant duties, conflicts with neighbors, injustices to
swallow. In short, my fantasy of a beautiful care-free existence is not
triggered into revolutionary commitment because my mind is already
too strongly committed to the reality of power. So all I have to do to
change the minds of these people is to show them, in terms of their
own personalities, that implementing The Big Idea will lead to that
equation of what they don’t want with what they won’t put up with.
And that is easy to do, since I know how they will be giving up
certain power in exchange for a situation in which power ostensibly
will be nullified, but in which power will actually coalesce in ways
unfavorable to them.

RIVAL 2: You mean you scare them off?

RIVAL 1: You know, I am still amazed at these flashes of brilliance
you so unpredictably display.

RIVAL 2: Oh, yeah? Well, that doesn’t sound like—hey, boss: here
come those fogheads!

(HALFWITS enter right, searching about)

RIVAL 1: I didn’t think they’d show up. Hey, you! What are you
looking for?

HALFWIT 1:
That’s a good question,
But it’s rather tough.

HALFWIT 2:
No, then it’s not good,
Because it’s so rough.

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