“All right,” Julian said. “Most of those you’ve mentioned belong to the older generations. Time has passed them by and they’re uncomfortable. How about dissident groups among the younger people?”
Edith was obviously the one to answer that. She said, her voice unhappy, “Some of our youth, usually those of too low an Aptitude Quotient to be selected by the computers for a job on Muster Day, read the old stories and look at the old movies and TV shows in the International Data Banks and become enamored of the past. They seem to think present-day life is static and unadventurous.”
Her father said sourly, “When I was a youngster, I used to dream of the days when knights were bold and damsels swooned. It never occurred to me that during the Dark Ages not one person out of a hundred was a knight or a damsel. Ninety-nine percent of the population were out in the fields, serfs grubbing away at the soil with primitive tools.”
“Who else?” Julian demanded. “Who else in this Utopia of yours wants change?”
Both of them thought for long moments, and finally both shook their heads.
Julian said, “In my day, and before it, there were people, most of whom were probably very idealistic, who were nevertheless rebels. They existed in just about every country, and in every socioeconomic system. I guess you could say they were revolutionists. People in my position were inclined to believe these types to be crackpots, or opportunists. But most of them were not. Tom Paine, for instance, who probably more than any other single person put over the American Revolution of 1776, was neither a crackpot nor personally ambitious. Neither was Lenin or Trotsky. Neither was Mao or Che Guevara. Who else can I think of who wasn’t grinding his own ax? Let’s say Jean-Paul Marat, of the French Revolution; Rosa Luxemberg, the German radical following the First World War; the anarchist, Kropotkin. Let’s say Wendell Phillips, the American abolitionist.”
Both Leete and Edith were frowning at him.
“I fail to see your point,” the academician said.
Julian took a breath. “It would seem that in any socioeconomic system there are what can only be described as instinctive revolutionists. I’m not talking about the Hitlers, the Mussolinis, the Francos, I mean the idealistically motivated—whether they are right or wrong in their beliefs. Karl Marx was neither a villain nor a fool, but he was a lifelong revolutionist. Do you have any equivalent today?”
Leete slumped back in his chair. “Why… why, I don’t know. I suppose that possibly we have. I wouldn’t agree with them, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t admit their right to disagree with our present social system.”
Julian wryly misquoted, “I thoroughly disagree with what you have to say, and would defend with my life your right to say it.”
Edith asked, “What are you leading up to, Jule?”
He shook his head, then motioned to the doctor to follow him.
Leete, mystified, let his guest lead him to the bathroom. There, Julian turned on both the shower and the faucet in the lavatory.
He whispered, “Keep your voice low.”
The doctor stared at him, but nodded.
Julian whispered, “Do you know what a bug is?”
“A bug?”
“A device that can be put into your home, or in your phone screen, to listen in on everything you say.”
Leete was still gawking at him. “You mean like in that Watergate scandal way back?” he whispered.
“Never heard of it,” Julian whispered. “Must have happened after I went into stasis.”
“Why, yes, but we haven’t had anything like that for—”
“As you say, but could some of them be left over, here or there, or would there be plans on how to make them in the International Data Banks?”
Leete nodded dumbly. “Everything is in the data banks.”
“Okay. Are there plans there to make a mop?”
“What’s a mop?”
“An electronic device utilized to detect bugs.”
They were both still whispering over the sound of the rushing water. “Why, I suppose so.”
Next, Julian asked, “Do you have a friend who could get the plans out of the data banks and have a mop made secretly?”
“I suppose any of my friends who have hobby electronic shops in their basements or wherever could do it, particularly if the things go back over thirty years. It should be child’s play for a modern electronic tinkerer.”
“Somebody you could absolutely trust to secrecy?”
Leete thought, then nodded.
“All right. Get at it immediately,” Julian snapped. “Now, one other thing. Are you connected with the government in any way?”
“How did you know? I am associated with a committee which is working upon suggestions for reforming our present civil branch of the government. As you know, our present system is dual, one pertaining to economic matters, production and distribution, and the other to civic matters, the equivalent of what the government was in the old days. Under the revised constitution—”
“Okay, okay,” Julian interrupted. “Let’s go back to the living room. Don’t say anything, anything at all about this to anyone. Not even Martha or Edith.”
The doctor gaped at him all over again, but nodded agreement.
Chapter Twelve
The Year 2, New Calendar
The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
—Anatole France
I’m anti-communists! What more do they want of me?
—Anthony Anastasia, Mafia Godfather
America is beginning to accept a new code of ethics that allows for chiseling and lying.
—Walter Lippmann
When the two men reentered the room Edith looked at them questioningly. “What have you two been up to?”
“I’ll never tell,” Julian said, doing his best to leer.
The doctor went over to the phone screen.
Julian said hurriedly, “Who are you going to call?”
“Why, that friend I just told you about.”
Julian shook his head. “Go and see him.”
Leete looked mildly surprised, but then nodded. “I see,” he said.
“Yes. And keep obviously what is in mind, in mind,” Julian insisted, and then added somewhat wearily, “I am from an age when we were conscious of these things.”
“What in heaven are you two talking about?” Edith demanded.
“A dirty joke,” Julian said.
“What is a dirty joke?”
He looked at her in exasperation. “See here,” he said. “Ever since I came out of stasis, you’ve been telling me we don’t have this any more, you don’t have banks, you don’t have cities in the sense we had them a third of a century ago. You don’t have wars, and you don’t have jails. You don’t have newspapers and you don’t have schools in the sense that we did. You don’t even have stores. But now I am calling a halt. Don’t tell me you don’t tell dirty stories any more!”
Doctor Leete was chuckling. He said, “You know, it’s been so long that I’d just about forgotten. Dirty stories were simply stories usually based on taboos such as sex, or excretion, and usually involving taboo words. Do away with the taboos and the institution disappears.”
Edith was mystified. “What’s a taboo word?”
Julian was looking from one to the other. He had been in stasis for something like ten years before Edith had even been born.
The academician laughed again. “I doubt if any explanation would make sense to you. When I was a lad, I could say ‘pee’, if I meant urinate, but if I said ‘piss,’ I was spanked.”
Julian chimed in, “I was allowed to say ‘heck,’ but if I said ‘hell,’ I was punished, although the word was used in the same way. Some parents were even more strict. Their children could say ‘Gad,’ but not ‘God.’ ‘Goddamnit’ came out ‘gaddarnit.’ ’”
“What has all this got to do with dirty jokes, whatever they are
?”
Julian sighed. “Let me think of an example. Okay. An American was telling an Englishman a poem:
Mary had a little skirt
Slit right up the side
And every time she took a step
It showed her little thigh.
“The Englishman returned to London and told it to a friend:
Mary had a little skirt
Split right up the front
And every time she took a step
It showed her little… no, that can’t be right.”
The doctor laughed mildly but Edith merely looked at Julian and said, “That’s a dirty story?”
“Well, yes.”
“A joke?”
“Yes.”
“What’s funny about it?”
Julian closed his eyes in pain. “It’s like your father was telling you: it’s based on a taboo word. So the Englishman by suggesting it, though not actually saying it, made the joke funny.”
Edith looked at her father. “What dirty word?”
Her father cleared his throat. “ ‘Cunt.’ In Middle English it was cunte, originally derived from the Latin cunnus, and meaning vagina. It was one of the taboo words.”
“Why not simply say vagina?”
He said, “I give up. I knew very well I wasn’t going to be able to explain dirty jokes. In fact, I’m not sure I understand why I ever thought they were funny. Good-bye. I’m off to see someone on a suggestion of Julian’s that I’m not sure I understand either.” He left, shaking his head.
Edith asked Julian, “Do you know any more dirty jokes?”
“No,” he said definitely, sitting down across from her. He brought his notes from his side pocket.
“What do you have there?” she said.
“Some notes 1 was going to ask your father about, but it occurs to me that as a student of anthropology, you might be more up on it than he is. It has to do with crime.”
“Crime? Oh, of course. Fascinating. I spent over a year studying it. It must have been fabulous, living back when they had crime.”
He let the breath out of his lungs. “Yeah,” he said. “Never a dull moment. No more crime these days, hey?”
“No. Of course not.”
He didn’t bother to disguise his skepticism as he fumbled through his notes. “All right. Now let me state my case. When I went into hibernation, we had one hell of a lot of crime. It was growing so fast it was hard to keep statistics.”
He looked down at his papers. “For instance, we had petty crime, such as shoplifting, avoiding paying your fare when getting on a subway or bus, children sneaking into movies, walking out on a bill in a restaurant, figuring out methods of making long distance calls on the telephone without paying.” He paused. “Then there were servants pilfering about the household, servants getting a kickback from the butchershop and other stores where they purchased supplies for their employers. Trivia such as that.”
“Fascinating,” she repeated.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “I once had a houseman who drank up three cases of vintage champagne on me.” He went back to his notes. “Then we had crimes of violence. Mugging, kidnapping, piracy even, in some parts of the world, murder, rape, robbery of homes, stores, warehouses, and banks.
“And along in here we have a whole variety of odds and ends: confidence games, prostitution, gambling, blackmail, pickpocketing, smuggling, cattle rustling, extortion. Actually, the list is endless. At the very top, even more lucrative than bank robbery, and certainly more often committed, there’s embezzlement.”
“Yes,” she said brightly. “I studied all about it. Men like Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, Al Capone.”
He looked at her sarcastically. “So no more, eh?”
She shook her head.
“No more police, no more jails. Don’t need ’em any more, right?”
“That’s right,” she said reasonably.
He threw down the sheaf of notes on the coffee table.
“Why not? All through history we’ve had crime, since first some caveman slugged his neighbor over the head with a club and swiped his wife. So now, all of a sudden, why has it ended?”
“Because the reasons ended.”
He took her in silently.
She said, “Now see here. All those different types of crimes you mentioned fit roughly into one of two categories; those committed for the sake of money, and those due to mental illness. Obviously, now that we’ve eliminated money, crimes that dealt with stealing, as such, were abolished out of hand. What would you steal, these days? Those that dealt with mental illness are now in the hands of the Medical Guild, not police, courts, and jails.”
She thought about it. “Why, even in your day how did they deal with a shoplifter who was found to be a kleptomaniac?”
“Okay. But look, take a present-day embezzler. Suppose you had someone working in the part of the data banks dealing with what we would have called banking—the credit records. Someone in a position to so alter the records that he deposited to his own account, say, twice as much credit as the other citizens are granted from their Guaranteed Annual Income. What would you do with him?”
Edith sighed. “Jule, in the first place he would have no motive for doing such a thing since he already receives all that he needs. You can’t eat more than three or four meals a day, you can’t wear more than one outfit of clothes at a time, and you can’t sleep in more than one bed. As things are now, most people don’t use up their yearly quota of credit. What in the world would you do with twice as much? But if such a thing did happen, then obviously the person involved would be mentally deranged and the Medical Guild would treat him.”
“And during the time he was being treated, he would still continue to receive his Guaranteed Annual Income?”
“But of course.”
Julian sighed. “Okay. All right. But how about rape? Don’t tell me there are no longer crimes of passion.”
“Yes, there are; seldom, but sometimes. As to rape, sex is so free, so easily available to all, that only a terribly upset person would resort to rape for sexual satisfaction. In which case, once again, it is a matter for the Medical Guild to treat the poor harassed individual.”
“But suppose in committing the rape, the rapist kills the girl. Suppose the rapist is a sadist.”
She looked at him in puzzlement. “But surely even in your time a sadist was given psychiatric care rather than punishment.”
“Sometimes,” he muttered. “Sometimes they were executed, or given life imprisonment.”
“How terrible!”
“Suppose it’s a crime against the State?”
“What State? There is no State. The State was an institution for the purpose of maintaining a class-divided society. It was organized with laws, police and military, courts and prisons to maintain the status quo under slavery, feudalism, capitalism, or state-capitalism, which was what the Soviet-type communism was really all about. Today, we have no State, since we have no class or classes to be kept subjugated.”
“What I mean is, suppose someone comes along who wants to overthrow this so-called Golden Rule society of yours. What do you do with him?”
“Nothing. Any citizen is free to advocate any change.”
“But suppose he wants to overthrow the system?”
“If he could convince the majority of our citizens that his plan was appropriate, then it would be done.”
Julian was becoming impatient with her. “But suppose he knew that he couldn’t convince a majority and resorted to force and violence. In the old days, in the United States, it was theoretically legal to advocate a basic change. The country was full of minority parties and groups who wanted to establish everything from socialism to anarchy. But you had to advocate that it be accomplished by peaceful means—the ballot. When somebody came along such as the IWW, the Wobblies, or the early Communist Party, who favored armed revolt, the police, the F.B.I., and everyone else landed on them like a ton of bricks.”
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The idea was so foreign to Edith that she had to think it over. She said finally, “He’d have his work cut out trying to accomplish it. For one thing, in your day half the citizens in the country seemed to possess guns. If not, they were easily obtained, even after various laws were passed to control them. But today I would estimate that not one person in fifty owns a firearm. Hunting is no longer a popular sport; we tend to protect our wildlife. Those who do have guns usually have small-caliber ones for use in marksmanship clubs. They would hardly be suitable for armed revolt.”
“But suppose a few thousand people did arm themselves,” he argued, “even with these small-caliber guns, and seized the government?”
“Jule, Jule, you know enough about the manner in which the country is run now to realize how silly that sounds. We have no government in the sense that applied in the middle of the twentieth century. The government that we do have, if that is what you want to call it, is not in control of the country. Let us suppose that you did seize all the members of the Production Congress. What would have been accomplished? They are not in control of the nation. The production of the industries and the other necessary work would go on. We would simply elect new members to a new Production Congress. But it is all so ridiculous. What would motivate such people? What would they gain that they do not have now?”
Julian grabbed up his notes and fumbled through them. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Somebody—it was you, I think—told me that narcotics were legal now. Anybody can try them.”
“Yes. If you become addicted and wish to be cured, the cure is immediate and you develop a built-in allergy to the drug you were on. Both a physical and a psychological allergy, so that you both don’t want to ever try it again and physically are incapable of standing it.”
Equality: In the Year 2000 jw-2 Page 13
