When Our Guy, post-graduate doctoral candidate, set out to disprove the age-old theory that no two snowflakes are alike by finding two that were, his dissertation committee put him to the task. But his results were, for all intents and purposes, incontrovertible.

First, he kept both snowflakes frozen on protected glass slides. Then he projected their images on a screen and asked test subjects to find the difference. Half said there was no difference; half said there was a difference, but no two subjects agreed as to what the difference was.

Over time he made the projections circular, paying careful attention to coincide the center of each circle with the center of each snowflake. He also eliminated the slightest smudge or scratch, of even a nanometer, on the slides and projector lenses, and bought a brand-new screen so there would be no blemishes there, either. Thus the images could look as identical as possible without an inadvertent variation in orientation or axis, or superficial imperfection, interfering. 

When he tried projecting two images of the same snowflake and again told test subjects to find the difference, he got virtually the same responses as when the images were of two different snowflakes. When he tried two projections of the other snowflake, same thing.

But these tests involved an indefinite period of time and, afterwards, both transcription and analysis of each subject’s comments. He needed less conversation and more numbers. Data don’t lie, but analysis can, his advisor said.

So he revised the experiment a few more times, but this is the version he ran with. He exhibited one projection above, with two below it to either side. He made it a given that the image above was from the same snowflake as one of the two images below. Subjects were asked to write down which one they thought it was. Nothing more. It made for a much quicker response time.

He alternated four parameters: which of the two snowflakes was projected in the upper image; which of the two available images of that snowflake was projected below; which non-matching image was used below; and finally, the positions of the two bottom images, left to right. Thus there were sixteen displays possible (do the math) and sixteen types of test groups to compare, each to itself as well as to the others. Most importantly, even the test-giver never knew which of the sixteen variations was being used; projector and projectionist were concealed in a sound-proof and darkened booth. Thus, subjects could not inadvertently be given a hint through body language, facial expression, intonation, or other subliminal means.

After two minutes, those who had not yet chosen which of the two images below was like the one above were asked, once and once only, to “give it a best-guess effort, please,” with those exact words. If they still declined to choose—they were given one additional minute—their tests were counted as “no response.” Testing continued like this over the course of an entire year. Out of the 126,000 subjects who did respond, precisely 31,500 picked A identical with A, not B, 31,500 picked A identical with B, not A, 31,500 picked B identical with B, not A, and 31,500 picked B identical with A, not B. 50% got it wrong and 50% got it right.

In other words, statistically, there was no difference between the two snowflakes, as far as human perception was concerned, or a large cross section of humanity, at any rate. To the naked eye, the snowflakes were, for all intents and purposes, identical.

In his defense-of-dissertation session, he brought in projectors and set up the various versions of the experiment for the committee. One rather taciturn professor—the chair of the tenure committee, interestingly enough—finally commented, “There is a difference between being identical, and being identical to the naked eye, even at 1000X.” Well, that set the tone and the other committee members were swayed and Our Guy’s doctorate was denied.

Our Guy kept his slides, though, and decided to go public, conducting—or rather, performing—the experiment with live audiences on all the daily talk shows. He self-mockingly called himself a “Doctornaut,” meaning not-a-doctorate, and yet somewhat like an astronaut. He was just being honest and didn’t want to pretend to be an expert in a field for which he had no actual credential. His modesty made him all the more affable and attractive a talk-show guest. Female viewers swooned, and soon he was in high demand.

On one of these television appearances, Our Guy happened to mention the graduate program by name. An unintended result of this was that that graduate program started to receive fewer and fewer student applications each year, until, after a time, it had no students. Finally, that graduate department was eliminated by its university—along with its faculty, tenure be damned. What else could the university do?

Meanwhile, Our Guy was named Person of the Year in more than a few polls.

Now famous as a self-styled “Doctornaut,” Our Guy still wanted his doctorate, though. He decided to try divinity school and go for a D. Div. degree. He aced all the courses in the program, as well as the exams, and was at the top of his class by the time it came to defend his dissertation. Again, he took up a seemingly innocuous notion, but it proved controversial since it concerned the concept of Original Sin. His dissertation successfully demonstrated not only that he didn’t have it when he was born, but, in addition, that no one did: in fact, that there had never been any such thing as Original Sin in the first place. As you can imagine, he was denied his degree by what the newspapers started to call the “questionable faculty” of that divinity school. Whether those faculty members were Jesuit or not was not the issue, but of course it was made the issue when Jesuits talked about it, or the press, for again, Our Guy went public.

Again, a graduate school met its Maker.

In his thirties, or almost, and with the most recognized name on the planet, but known as much for his ABD achievements, or failures (ABD meaning “All But Degree”), as for his books and celebrity personality, Our Guy still wanted that doctorate. He tried economics. Again, number one in his class. This time his dissertation title was long and confusing, which impressed the committee. His thesis was to refute Adam Smith—or, more specifically, the contemporary application of Smith's theory, which maintained that unbridled capitalism was the only viable economic basis for a free society in modern times. He cited many examples of exceptions. This time, though, he published his dissertation, toning down the academic jargon, as a pop-culture nonfiction book before his defense in front of the committee. It shot to the top of the best-seller charts and its ideas were widely promulgated not just in academic circles but at high-brow society-lady teas; at Rotary, Lions, and Elks luncheons; and on interview and call-in shows in 143 countries and in 78 languages all over the planet. So if the committee members were not familiar with Our Guy’s ideas even before they read the official draft-dissertation, they must have never watched TV, listened to radio, logged on to the internet, or looked up at the covers of any tabloid newspapers or popular magazines while standing in a supermarket checkout line.

In any event, when Our Guy’s economics defense was scheduled, the whole world was aware of it. Reporters and cameramen surrounded the economics building. When his interview was over and he walked out the front door onto the quad, you bet he was asked for a statement by the press. Our Guy felt quite good about how things had gone, but was shrewd enough to reply “no comment.” Seventy-three times. The reporters didn’t budge, though, but camped outside throughout the committee’s deliberations. The committee members, too, to a one, answered “no comment,” one after the other, when they finally left the building at about midnight.

You know what happened. Again.

Now, with three ABDs but the sympathy of millions, possibly billions, Our Guy was pressed by many to run for public office of some kind. But no, he wanted that doctorate. So he tried history. Dissertation topic: that Columbass (his spelling) couldn’t possibly have discovered America because there were people already living there when he arrived. They, if not someone before them, were therefore the only possible candidates for who truly discovered America. In fact, to say otherwise denied the humanity—the person-hood—of those original Americans, and was nothing short of propaganda. For the oncoming genocide, which Columbass and the Spanish—all the old colonial powers, to varying degrees—promptly perpetrated. For that is what denying someone’s humanity facilitates.

The idea caught on like wildfire all across the planet. As a mass-market paperback, this dissertation outsold all other books, ever in print, in the history of the world—combined.

Other thinkers were inspired and wrote exposés of other fables, legends, myths, and old saws that had been handed down from generation to generation. What else had self-styled “experts” gotten wrong over the course of history, the new generation figured, besides snowflakes? What other widely-accepted truisms might be worth a closer examination? What else might be possible?

They, too, called themselves Doctornauts—though some of them did have doctorate degrees in various fields—acknowledging their debt to Our Guy. One Doctornaut had a bestseller debunking the time-worn spin about Abraham. He quite simply demonstrated that that original patriarch not only raped a slave ("You cannot have consenting sexual relations with someone over whom you have the power of life and death," he explained. "How could one consent? So his action was statutory at the very least"), but later tried to convince his wife—and some unsuspecting, albeit influential, scribe—that God had told him to do it.

Another Doctornaut demonstrated that “of color” and “colored” were actually the same thing. At televised debates with those who insisted on asserting a kind of dignity inherent in the expression “person of color” that was absent from “colored person,” he managed to get them to change their minds—seventeen times. Pundits who continued to use the expression “persons of color” began using a new corresponding expression, however, rather than contrasting “persons” with “persons of color”—since “persons of color” were, after all, persons. Now, the phrase “persons of color” tended to be contrasted with “persons of pallor.” One popular talk show host remarked, as a sidebar, that this made so much sense. After all, no so-called “white” person ever was, actually, white—not even albinos. Only paler than most folks. And this idea, too, caught on, as it seemed only fair.

A third Doctornaut-disciple demonstrated that the “stars and bars” was actually the battle flag of a regime that condoned and perpetrated the systematic torture, enslavement, dismemberment, rape, displacement, dispossession, theft, lynching, and massacre of an entire group of people WHO HAD DONE NOTHING WRONG, and that in the aftermath of chattel slavery in America, this same flag had become a symbol not of patriotism, but rather of treason and terrorism.

A fourth reminded the world that Jesus was an immigrant, a refugee, an asylum-seeker, a migrant, and “undocumented,” so that those self-styled Xtians who were against any of these groups—or even voted for someone who was—were therefore not true Xtians at all, but, perhaps unwittingly, anti-Jesus, given his teachings such as “Whatsoever you do to the least of humanity, that you do unto me.” And this new Xtian idea, which was actually the original Xtian idea of the Golden Rule—kindness—caught on. Folks the world over started trying to love their neighbors as themselves, and not just superficially. No, they admitted how hard it was to achieve, that is, to actually love—with heart, mind and soul—people who seem different, and not just act as if you do. 

Poets and poetry teachers, artists and art teachers, musicians and music teachers, and dramatists and drama teachers, even dancers and dance teachers, started to ask themselves and each other, “How does this piece of art, or writing, or performance, help? Not just help you in expressing who you are, what you feel, what you’ve lived, and how you see the world; not just your reader, viewer, or audience, in attaining a better understanding of you, themself, or the world; but, rather, how does this piece actually help the world become a better place?” In other words, “What does the piece champion—and is that worthwhile?”

These new parameters served as the touchstone of what became known as The New New Criticism. Self-expression was fine, but societal salvation was finer. Slowly but surely, it had its effect on art, literature, and performance, which in turn started to have, for the first time since Harriet Beecher Stowe, a transformative effect on the world.

As Plato had recommended millennia before, fascists and their sympathizers countered with “Expel the poets!” But rather than shying away, the poets rose to the occasion with revolutionary kindness, incorrigible consideration, and indomitable love—even, somehow, for the fascists themselves. Thus the arguments of fascists and bullies were drowned out, and such people became, for the first time in the history of the world, the marginalized sections of society.

Folks who were not even Quakers started calling total strangers “Friends.” And, for the first time since 1917, even aristocrats started calling total strangers “Comrade.”

South of the Mason-Dixon Line, vast swaths of the population held great “Never Again” sit-ins, actually love-ins, where they burned swastikas, nooses, and stars-and-bars "rags." After a while, even descendants of slaves, of lynching and massacre victims, and of Frederick Douglass, felt safe enough to attend, and they suddenly and surprisingly found themselves hugged and hugged and hugged and called names like Brother and Sister and Sibling. Even self-styled “crackers” with thick drawls took to their knees—or a single knee—and lit candles, lighters, or palm-phones and embraced their neighbors and said, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and we will make it up to you, well, as best we can.

In Australia, folks started using words like folks instead of aborigines to refer to the original Australians, and similar Never-Again sit-ins were held, with similar hugs, apologies, and good will.

Eventually, poverty was eliminated, violence rendered obsolete, and peace reigned over the planet. Some op-ed columnists opined that the Age of Aquarius had arrived. At last.

Our Guy still refers to himself as a Doctornaut, for no dissertation committee has approved any of his dissertation defenses. Nevertheless, he has managed to receive numerous honorary degrees. Oddly enough, many are from institutions of higher learning far more prestigious than those that denied him. He tells me that the number of his honorary degrees stands today at 4,723. But, so far, the institutions granting them have been located only in the most remote quadrants of the galaxy.