All of Cecil's experience with debate has taken place in the context of interviews. One question, one answer, one pre-established agenda to which both host and interviewee understand they are to adhere. The word "Socratic" is not in his vocabulary. He opens his mouth to reply to Enjolras two or three times, and with every new question his irritation mounts. Really! This isn't even a conversation anymore! If Enjolras isn't interested in hearing an answer to any of his questions, then he might as well not even--
"...but it is still a deception."
Cecil's train of thought stops. He gropes for words, and his heartbeat picks up when he finds none.
There is a script that the Capitol follows, and that Cecil has always followed, and that he has spent twenty years trying to teach himself to forget he is following. The word deception brings with it an involuntary stab of guilty fear-- and, hard on its heels, a kind of defensive indignation. Where does Enjolras think he is? In what context is it appropriate to bring such personal self-deception up at a first introduction? It takes him too long to respond-- too long to settle back into the script he is following.
"Now, you listen here!" he says sharply, and hopes he has not come in too late to interrupt. "I don't know about you, but I came here to watch the Hunger Games-- not to discuss the many things that we know we do not know, or the equally many things that we know we are forbidden to know!" He lets that declaration sit for a second, and then adds, less sharply but no less decisively, "Besides-- I am a journalist. It is not my job to ask questions about the function of our government."
no subject
"...but it is still a deception."
Cecil's train of thought stops. He gropes for words, and his heartbeat picks up when he finds none.
There is a script that the Capitol follows, and that Cecil has always followed, and that he has spent twenty years trying to teach himself to forget he is following. The word deception brings with it an involuntary stab of guilty fear-- and, hard on its heels, a kind of defensive indignation. Where does Enjolras think he is? In what context is it appropriate to bring such personal self-deception up at a first introduction? It takes him too long to respond-- too long to settle back into the script he is following.
"Now, you listen here!" he says sharply, and hopes he has not come in too late to interrupt. "I don't know about you, but I came here to watch the Hunger Games-- not to discuss the many things that we know we do not know, or the equally many things that we know we are forbidden to know!" He lets that declaration sit for a second, and then adds, less sharply but no less decisively, "Besides-- I am a journalist. It is not my job to ask questions about the function of our government."