The lecture explains how human ingenuity and cleverness got us into this mess in the first place and then demolishes the Rational Optimist's view that those very gifts can help us "technologise" our way out of it.
For it, too, is a product of human intelligence, in all its scheming cleverness.
One could say that there's nothing at stake in this play except the future of humanity; when it comes to actual human beings, Shaw here is perhaps too clever by half, the extra half-portion of cleverness serving as a substitute for emotional depth.
He's a shelter dog saved from a pound as a puppy and destined for euthanasia until some alert human spotted a spark in him — some cleverness, some drive — and set in motion a series of events that led to him becoming a search-and-rescue animal.
The cleverness is that you constantly see the human beneath the fur (or, in this case, the woolly hats and knitwear).
But others hold that the main trait selected for was friendliness--seeking human company and not biting--and that the cleverness of dogs was an unintended byproduct.
The realist is a pioneer essential for the evolution of human beings; idealists are frightened by change and use their cleverness to justify the status quo; and the philistines are the easy-going majority, content to substitute custom for conscience.
That judgment, as unexpected as it is perspicacious, is typical of Barthelme, whose work repels certain accusations habitually levelled at postmodernism: that it fails to engage with the world or the human condition, eschewing emotional depth in favour of tail-chasing cleverness.
