Once again, we're thinking of the children
Thinking of how we can control them.
Now for our third story about the noble, data-obsessed nation of Democratia and back to an issue I’ve mentioned before. The government manages to reduce the crime rate, but then decides that prevention is better than cure by banging up recidivists before they can get up to any mischief. And then recidivists came to include anyone who might complain a little and school children, who were an easy target.
The choice was between the good of the many and the inconveniencing of a few. But did the government really have to think of the children?
We seem to be back in the world of utilitarianism again. Indeed, this would just about be HMG’s ideal world in which the sheep-like populace thinking that it enjoys greater freedom than all those wretched foreign Johnnies fails to observe that its lot isn’t as good as it thought. In fact, all too many of the sheep-like populace would probably applaud. The scenario is not unlike Brave New World with its manufactured population. It’s also ironic that East Diktatia, which everyone knows is a one-party state, is a relaxed place in comparison, where people tend to follow the law of custom rather than the law of the land.
It strikes me that an ideal society is a dead society. Without some antisocial behaviour there's no stimulus for society to improve itself and no stimulus, it would seem, for people to object when the government of Democratia becomes the People’s Republic of Demokratia. You can still vote, but only for the candidate the government tells you to vote for, and to spare the bovine population confusion, there’s only one name to choose on the ballot paper.
I was right about the Utilitarian aspect of this scenario. I think that’s another philosophy that goes on the list with Stoicism and Epicureanism. Nice idea, but forces humans into situations which are contrary to their true nature.
The choice was between the good of the many and the inconveniencing of a few. But did the government really have to think of the children?
We seem to be back in the world of utilitarianism again. Indeed, this would just about be HMG’s ideal world in which the sheep-like populace thinking that it enjoys greater freedom than all those wretched foreign Johnnies fails to observe that its lot isn’t as good as it thought. In fact, all too many of the sheep-like populace would probably applaud. The scenario is not unlike Brave New World with its manufactured population. It’s also ironic that East Diktatia, which everyone knows is a one-party state, is a relaxed place in comparison, where people tend to follow the law of custom rather than the law of the land.
It strikes me that an ideal society is a dead society. Without some antisocial behaviour there's no stimulus for society to improve itself and no stimulus, it would seem, for people to object when the government of Democratia becomes the People’s Republic of Demokratia. You can still vote, but only for the candidate the government tells you to vote for, and to spare the bovine population confusion, there’s only one name to choose on the ballot paper.
I was right about the Utilitarian aspect of this scenario. I think that’s another philosophy that goes on the list with Stoicism and Epicureanism. Nice idea, but forces humans into situations which are contrary to their true nature.
Tomorrow, the politicians recall youthful indiscretions and wonder if all this info was such a good idea after all.
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