Peter Billig
THE SIDE EFFECT
Unlike other creeds, we Plaudists have not been persecuted: people never took us seriously and we, for our part, have not been making a nuisance of ourselves: our only public appearances – the attempts of setting off and protracting applause whenever and wherever the opportunity offers – are – anyone would concede – of an innocuous character; they even earn us some goodwill, mainly in Thespian circles.
As the public know only that our entire rite consists of clapping hands, and we, for our part, pursue no information or missionary activities (new coreligionists are enrolled only if vouched for by three sponsoring members), there is a proliferation of contrary opinions: that it is applause for the perfection of the Creator and His Creation; that we do it in order to attract His attention; that the cadenced salvos of handclapping imbue us with a feeling of safety and power.
The truth is, however, that belief or unbelief in God is a private matter of each of us.
By what right, then, do we profess ourselves as a faith?
Because in the period when Plaudism was established it was safer to be deemed a heretic than an atheist.
Who do we clap for, then?
For nobody. We clap in order to achieve the Side Effect.
What Side Effect?
To explain, we must go back to the very genesis of the movement.
Count Wolfgang von Bodenheim, a welcome guest at Maria Theresia’s court, as he was promenading, on August the 12th 1770, in a Viennese park, picked up and returned a batiste handkerchief to a pretty young lady who had dropped it. She thanked him, but the accompanying cavalier slapped his face.
The gallant Count went home ruminating upon the unpredictability of human reactions. Having eaten a meal and spoken to a friend, whom he burdened with a matter of greatest urgency, he returned to his meditations, supporting his thoughts with laconic notes.
The fruit of these musings was the unexpected conclusion – the cornerstone of Plaudism to this day – that to every action, resulting every time in the same proven and evident outcome, corresponds, at some umpteenth, albeit unforeseeable, repetition, a specific side effect. Thus, handing over lost handkerchiefs to ladies invariably causes their gratitude; only at some instance, which is fixed in advance, though unknown to us, it causes a slap on the face from an escorting cavalier.
Against all appearances, this theory contains nothing mystical: if because of God’s will or, say, the laws of Nature a splash is heard whenever a stone is thrown into water, why should it be strange if, on the strength of some divine or natural law, an umpteenth splash be linked with, say, development of spots on the Sun?
But why did the prosaic and unadventurously thinking Count thrust himself upon this highly speculative theory, savoring of a bad joke, without any comparative material except the episode of the handkerchief?
Because it dawned on him that although shortly before he had celebrated his 31st birthday, he achieved nothing worthy of remembrance by the future generations and that he had only a fifty-fifty chance – considering the gravity of his present situation – of achieving anything like that in the future. And that is why, ignoring the scarcity of material, he went on with his undertaking, now and then getting (as his chaotic notes testify) off the road, chasing his tail or falling asleep.
Illumination reached him in the early hours; the manuscript does not state whether he was asleep or alert at that time. It states, however, in a categorical form – as if it were a fact unconditionally true and proven – that there are merely three things one can do to bring about side effects salutary for Mankind: clapping hands, smacking lips and snapping fingers: clapping – the greatest, smacking – a lesser one, snapping – the least.
What effects exactly? There is no doubt that he knew, but he’s never written it down, as he was interrupted by the arrival of his second with a box of pistols. An hour later he fell with a bullet in his heart.
Count Hubert von Bodenheim, while sorting out the papers of his deceased brother, had the spiritual upheaval of his life. Having recognized the notes as the late brother’s last will and testament, he presented them for the company of mutual friends and acquaintances where they were received as a revelation.
And that’s how Plaudism came into being: initially, it bore the hallmark of an elite aristocratic club; later, its roster and numbers were decided by the resultant of the spirit of the following epochs. At present, there are 537 of us from every nation and walk of life.
As years passed, divergences within our community became visible: some members would maintain that the illumination of Count Wolfgang had been the result of divine intervention; others – that it had been a tangle of natural causes; some – that we owe it to the Count alone. These we call “humanists”, those we call “naturalists”, and the first – “theists”, but it is a delimitation purely formal, of no practical value.
A more important issue is that we differ as to what exactly would be most salutary for Mankind. Here the views span, to cite the most uncompromising, from “immediate and painless extinction of our species” through “unbridled sexual license” to “immortality”.
The most important issue is that – because of one of the Count’s blurred turns of phrase – some of us tend to avow that the most salutary side effect can be attained only after achieving the two smaller ones; and since others (the so-called “medialists” or, in common parlance: “smackers”) persist that the least salutary has already been achieved as the illumination of the Count (tradition confirms that he was habitually snapping his fingers whenever upset), and yet others (the so-called “minimalists”, conversationally: “snappers”) uphold that even the least salutary has not been achieved, the first concentrate on smacking their lips, the latter – on snapping their fingers – and both groups clap only in congregation – with no conviction or enthusiasm – only to maintain esprit de corps, while the overwhelming majority (the so-called “maximalists”, colloquially “claquers”) profess the healthy tenet that there is no point in pursuing petty aims – and they go directly for the ultimate prize. However, duly appreciating the minimalists’ and the medialists’ good will, we maximalists have introduced the custom of devoting a substantial portion of our general assemblies to joint snapping and smacking: we do not lack tolerance!
Some outsiders with an above average insight into our affairs spurn us that we profess such an unstable doctrine: without any assurance the it all is not a hoax by Count Wolfgang.
Well, we have testimony of reliable witnesses to the effect that the Count has been utterly devoid of any sense of humor, but we got to hand it to the critics that in order to become a Plaudist you really have to possess a great dose of optimism. Moreover, we are people so highly cultured, educated and open-minded that wobbly articulations of a pesky count have no credence among us.
Why then do we fritter away our precious years and energy?
Well… in case he was right. For how many millennia have you been offering up prayers, exploring Nature, building industries, changing political systems – and to what avail?
And we?
Well, we might insinuate ourselves into something by snapping, smacking or clapping.
And if not – who’s worse off?
Vos plaudite![1]
[1] You applaud! That’s how the Roman playwright, Plautus, speaks from the scene to his audience at the end of every of his comedies.
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