by TJ Seitz
how to jumpstart development and get human civilization moving forward again.
Unfortunately for citizens who are more free-spirited and abstract, the original Council of Elders was a practical lot. They were very literal-minded, pious and saw no value in intellectual pursuits that were not vocational, mathematical or scientific in nature.
The first Council was made up of three migrant farmers, an iron worker, two clergy (a Buddhist monk and a Roman Catholic bishop), a business woman, a mason, a maid and a retired math professor.
Rebuilding The World
No one can say for sure if it was just timing or that the assemblage of leaders entirely supported what they decreed.
The concept of banning of controversial books, sports, games and music was nothing new at the time.
Music was often censored by radio stations by either beeping out provocative lyrics or not playing songs altogether. Jewish composers and Jazz was banned by the Nazi’s during their regime. Writers, actors and musicians who were accused or admitted communists were blacklisted throughout the 1950’s and denied opportunities to work. During the early 1990’s Parental Advisory labels were placed on many compact discs and cassette tapes sold in stores because of influential lobbyists like Tipper Gore.
A number of conventional and video game series like Dungeons and Dragons and Grand Theft Auto were shunned and criticized by the Media because they promoted violence and crime. Sports, mainly football, hockey, boxing and basketball were heavily regulated to help prevent needless injuries, discourage overly aggressive behaviors, illegal activities like gambling and drug abuse.
Works such as The Catcher in The Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird were often removed from libraries by school boards. Religious leaders forbid followers from reading The Satanic Verses and The Last Temptation of Christ.
Between 2019 and 2024 a number of unusual accidents were reported on in the news that caused a lot of concern amongst people. Several little kids were seriously hurt on school buses and in cars because they or someone nearby was reading a book. Those occurrences were exploited and sensationalized by the Media in the same fashion as mass shootings in schools were when most Elders were young.
I remember watching a video in my junior year social studies class. It described how a toddler was blinded by the sharp corner of the picture book she was looking at. She tripped while walking with the open book and fell on the pointy edge. Soon afterward five boys were injured when the school bus they were riding in had to quickly stop. They were not sitting down and all gathered around a classmate who was reading a popular graphic novel. One of the boys slammed his head into the side of a seat and broke his neck. Lawsuits for back injuries caused by students being forced to carrying heavy textbooks in backpacks had also been commonplace for many years at the time.
The costly problem directly associated with books was initially resolved by many communities by outright banning them in certain places and/or restricting their possession, similar to what was done with tobacco products
The four men and six women who comprised the original Council of Elders upheld the popular notions that artistic or recreational undertakings associated with music, games, dancing, non-documentary type movies and sports were a waste of time. They also agreed at the time that reading’s sole purpose for relaying information (facts and instructions) not fun.
Measures were quickly taken by lawmakers to reflect and enforce those sentiments. .
Broadcast TV was replaced by existing live-streamed channels on the Internet where programming content could be monitored more rigorously. Twenty four hour news, ask the expert hotline and voyeuristic themed online channels became the standard when weekly prerecorded episodes of most non-family orientated popular Prime Time shows ceased to exist.
Radio stations continued to operate traditionally as well over the Internet. Individual stations became the responsibility of the Congress of the Four Recognized Religions. Radio programming is predominantly spiritual in nature or talk show based so young people like me hardly listened to it.
Nomenclature was even updated to reflect new attitudes. Approved reading material became known as text. Illegal writing was referred to negatively as a book.
A new branch of government service was also created. The Guardians of Morality were jointly conceived by the Council of Elders and the leaders of the Four Recognized Religions to help enforce change.
Few openly protested the new edicts. The decision to outlaw books and leisurely behavior was easily justified by the fact that the human race was nearly wiped out and that those who survived needed to spend their time productively focused on rebuilding, not fantasizing or playing games.
Everyone had bigger problems on their minds than reading novels or watching soccer on TV. The Masses just assumed that the new rulings were made for the “greater good” and moved on with their day to day lives, unaffected for the most part.
Individuals were encouraged to channel their creative urges towards homespun or utilitarian aims such as building furniture, cooking/baking/preserving foods, knitting, embroidery, quilting, growing vegetables or planting a tree garden. Exercising, yoga and martial arts also became popular pastimes for teenagers because they were social activities that encouraged fitness, stress management and mental discipline.
I used to attend daily Tai-Chi sessions in the morning before going to school and earned a blue belt in Judo by the time I was seventeen. I learned how to cook by necessity because I’m so picky about what I eat but never learned how to do more than crochet scarves, baby blankets and an occasional hat. My Granny used to joke that I’d make a lousy wife but a great mother (just like her).
The Congress of the Four Recognized Religions
Religious leaders who survived clearly remembered the past and knew that it would probably be repeated if they didn’t act.
To put themselves in a more advantageous position they proactively worked together to gain an upper hand by brokering an alliance with the Council of Elders. No one wanted another pogrom, Holocaust or Inquisition on their hands so it was better for Church and State to cooperate when rebuilding Society.
Representatives from each of the major faiths came together and formed the Congress of the Four Recognized Religions or the Four Recognized Religions. The four revered domains overseen by that consortium are Christianity-Judaism, Islam, Buddhism-Hinduism and Paganism.
Along from being exempt from the new laws associated with possessing paper and wood items, The Four Recognized Religions were also allowed to oversee other longstanding traditions associated with their churches. Music, dancing, philosophy and certain types of literature became church regulated after the government instituted its restrictions on those diversions.
Priests, Rabbis, Druids, Shaman, Mullahs and Monks in training are all taught to read old texts, play instruments, sing and dance for the benefit of their congregations. As those individuals advance and progress within their belief system hierarchy they are introduced to more complex concepts and additional material that is supposed to help them achieve their celestial goals. It’s their job to interpret what they learn for the benefit of their congregations, not share directly because most of what they are exposed to is beyond the comprehension of common folk.
The Guardians of Morality
I mentioned the Guardians of Morality earlier. This is probably as good a place as any to tell you more about them. My gut wants me to give you a simple description; the group of goons conceived by the Council and Four Recognized Religions to operate within the grey area between those two branches of government. It’s responsible for all the dirty work (re-enforcing and demonstration of appropriate social behaviors) that neither institution wants to be bothered with, but that might seem a bit biased so I’ll tell you a longer version instead.
The Guardians of Morality, also referred to as just “Guardians,” is an organization supported by both the government and religious leader
s of the world. It was sanctioned to assist Post-Plague Society with the enforcement of all the new rules and laws. The order was modeled in principle after similar traditional arrangements (Iran’s Basij, the Knights Templar during the Crusades and Japanese Chōnaikai neighborhood associations).
Membership is exclusive and obligatory if conscripted. Recruitment is done through appointment. Only high ranking officers, Elders or religious leaders can nominate inductees. Approval of recommended individuals is based on passing a thorough background check and a secretive voting process.
“Guardianship” is considered a great honor and not taken lightly because it becomes a person’s lifetime duty to “safeguard the three pillars of a stable society.”
Those standards are good intentions, prospering family and community service. Confucian Analects are used to instruct and support those values.
To accomplish those objectives, individual and squads of Guardians dressed in their drab, easily recognizable tan or gray uniforms, patrol public areas (parks, communals, malls, schools, places of employment) looking for individuals to chastise and/or remind (teach) about proper etiquette/ behaviors. They often perform citizen’s arrests and detain those who refuse to comply or have obviously
