Suppose that Jonathan Swift published Gulliver's Travels in the BMJ. Within hours the rapid responses have begun to appear.
The first one anticipates Thackeray, in whose judgment the book was “Filthy in word, filthy in thoughts, furious, raging, and obscene.” Moral outrage is followed by the scoffing of seafarers, geographers, and meteorologists pointing out that the tale is mere fantasy.
An engineer submits his calculations, according to which 1500 horses 4 inches high could not have drawn the carriage on to which Gulliver was fastened.
The human rights movement condemns the author for making fun of Lilliputians, people who were disadvantaged in growth. A rapid responder uses the words “dwarf” and “unnatural.”
Hell breaks loose. For two days rapid responders are hurling insults at each other. The World Federation of Acromegalics protests, claming that the description of the people of Brobdingnag is insulting to them. The animal welfare people deplore the mention of a cage.
Before long, rapid responders begin to refer to the Bible, some of them misquoting it and most of them interpreting it liberally.
One responder expands upon the subaquatic sexual attack of the young Yahoo female and discusses the positions in which the two would have been joined were it not that upon Gulliver's frightened roaring the nag came galloping and chased her away.
By the fifth day the row about what is and is not natural has been revived, the electronic debate has become global, and there is lively participation of people from the former colonies.
So far there is one lonely voice who suspects that the writer may have had his tongue “deeply in his cheek,” but on the fifth day a Dominican is wondering why doctors do not appreciate irony and a New Yorker recognises the style of Swift.
Swift alerts his circle of friends so that they do not miss the comedy. He reiterates his conviction: Aristotle was wrong in assuming that the human is a rational animal; while homo is capable of rationality, it eschews the use of this faculty most of the time.
There is one single syllable rapid response that remains ignored by the respondents but gives the good dean food for thought: this is the word “eh?”