"We are going to eliminate the differences between rich and
poor, young and old, black and white!" When Robert F. Kennedy made
this egalitarian promise at a political rally in 1968, I found myself
shouting and leaping in front of my television set just as the crowd
of teeny-boppers and groupies was doing around him in the hall where
he was speaking. His inspiring vision had just supplied the great spark
that kindled my desire to see the realization of the utopia in which
all people were truly equal.
I had long harbored such notions, of course, just as every
other great person before me had done. Famous societies of utopian
equality had been conceived by every great thinker from Plato in his
"Republic" to George Orwell in his "Animal Farm." Unfortunately, the
world is still unchanged, so I began devising a way to change it.
How could I succeed where others had failed? Not only had
other brilliant people conceived of ideal societies, but some had
actually put their plans into effect. Unfortunately, all these noble
experiments have ended either in dismal failure or in totalitarian
government. This has happened because these societies were exposed to
the harsh vicissitudes of reality or were overly burdened by having
to deal with the basic rottenness of human nature. Well, admittedly
these are big obstacles, especially for would-be utopian engineers.
These previous attempts to achieve utopia had really failed, I concluded,
because they did not cope with the fundamental problems and their
realistic solutions in the quest for total equality of the human race.
Having failed in this basic regard, they necessarily had to run into
the natural roadblocks which were a consequence of this oversight.
Perhaps some of these engineers were lacking in vision and could not
quite grasp the too-obvious fundamental differences which a utopian
engineer must eradicate if he is to achieve his goal permanently.
What, then, are the fundamental differences between people that
must be overcome if there is truly to be an egalitarian utopia? They
are these. First, and most commonly dealt with, people do not have the
same amount of wealth or possessions. Second, they differ physically
in such regards as the number of appendages, the power of speech, and
the senses of sight, hearing, smell, and taste. They also differ in
mentality, age, race, and sex. No one person is exactly like any other
in all of these respects and, indeed, there is a wide variety which is
very irritatingly unegalitarian.
Despair not, gentle reader, for I have designed a program which
can bring about a utopian society now. I humbly call my plan The
Equitable Solution, for it deals with the iniquitous inequities that
have been suffered to exist until this very day.
Now, you may ask why I am particularly qualified to design
such a marvelous plan. Like you undoubtedly have been, I was inculcated
from my very youth by the system of public education with the knowledge
of Thomas Jefferson's immortal statement that "All men are created equal."
A few people have maintained that Jefferson really meant that all men
should be treated equally in the eyes of the law, but any such original
connotations have long since become archaic. Actually, Jefferson's
meaning has evolved into the modern dictum that "All men are literally
created equal, or if not, should be." That is the underlying premise of
our egalitarian-leaning democracy, and that is what we all have been
repeatedly taught to think. I think like you do on this. However, I
differ from most people, particularly previous utopian engineers, in that
I have had extensive training in the higher sciences, most notably mathematics.
I began my college career as a mathematics major, and by the
time I had flunked out I was imbued with, in addition to my utopian philosophy, a highly
mathematical mind. I had learned to think of every conceivable
problem in terms of soluble equations. As a rare combination of philosopher
and scientist, I turned my highly mathematical mind to a solution for the
problem of human inequality. As a philosopher, I knew that it had to be
done, and as a scientist, I knew that it could be done with mathematical
simplicity if approached in a realistic manner.
Here, then, is The Equitable Solution. I propose, via realistic
methods, to create a utopian society wherein the Citizens shall all be
equal through the mathematical law of the Lowest Common Denominator. If
you are not the mathematical type, the Lowest Common Denominator is the
basic principle by which dissimilar objects are made similar, whether they
be fractions or people. In The Equitable Solution, the law of the
Lowest Common Denominator will be applied to people.
If a utopian society of equal Citizens is to be achieved, the
application of the Lowest Common Denominator law must be uniform and
realistic. Here is how it will be done: all people will be made equal.
They will be made equal by eliminating their differences.
In the list of differences previously outlined were both economic
and physical factors. The economic differences of all people will be
eliminated by the simple means of taking all wealth and all possessions
away from everyone. Then everyone will be reduced to the Lowest Common
Denominator, which in this case is the abject poverty of the Hottentot.
Eradicating physical differences will be somewhat more difficult
and time consuming. Naturally, to achieve the Lowest Common Denominator
physically, certain operations will have to be performed.
To make everyone equal, all limbs must be hacked off so that no Citizen
will be unequal to the most helpless quadruple amputee. In the case of
legs, this operation will be a fairly simple process of sawing away
both legs at once to save time and unnecessary suffering. Undoubtedly,
a couple of sturdy chaps equipped with a two-man treesaw could, with a
little practice, break the present world record for this operation which
is thirty-three seconds. Fortunately, laborers on this simple type of
work could be unskilled. Furthermore, since the amputation would have
to take place as close to the hip as possible, to prevent any Citizen
from having longer stumps than any other Citizen, unskilled workers
would not have to worry about amputating the males' genitals, since
these would no longer be necessary, anyway. Their arms would be a
little more difficult, as these will require one cut each. Next the
eyes of each Citizen will be gouged out so that he will be equal to the
naturally blind Citizens. Both this easy operation and that of
puncturing the eardrums will facilitate themselves readily to the use
of untrained laborers. However, when the sense of taste is equalized
by ripping out the tongue at its root and burning the inside of the
nose, personnel with some skill must be used to prevent the Citizen
from drowning in his own blood. This operation will serendipitously
equalize the power of speech and the sense of smell. Highly skilled
personnel, perhaps even physicians, will have to be used in the operation
that levels intelligence. A doctor friend of mine has told me
that this operation is commonly referred to as "ablation of the cerebrum."
Skilled personnel will insure the survival of each ablated
Citizen and secure the status of each Citizen as the exact equal of
the most incapacitated of slobbering idiots.
No physical operation will be necessary to make everyone equal
in age. This cannot be done in fact, but can be done in theory when
each Citizen embarks on the last phase of his Citizenship - a sort of
suspended animation. After the equalizing procedures are completed,
each person will then be placed on a table and hooked up to an intravenous
solution that will keep him going for the rest of his days, of
course in a coma to reach parity with Citizens already in that Lowest
Common Denominator state. The last two differences, race and sex, will
be discussed a little later.
But now I must digress long enough to explain the realistic
means by which the Citizens will be kept alive in their new utopia. I
mentioned an intravenous solution. Since Citizens will be able to eat,
but will not even have the mentality to know how to chew, the only
practical way they can be kept alive is by an intravenous solution of
glucose, proteins, vitamins, and electrolytes which will flow continuously
into their veins. Also, it will be necessary to include in it
temporarily some antibiotics that will prevent fatal infection from
setting in after the Citizen-creating operations.
The natural question that would next arise in the mind of any
pragmatist is how this intravenous compound is to be produced and by
whom. Well, I said that I had it all planned out realistically, and
this is the answer. It will be necessary for a minute percentage of
people to forego the pleasures of Citizenship so that the great majority
can be benefited. A fraction of us will have to remain behind to
keep the utopia going. We will serve two main functions: intravenous
compound production and stud service. We will toil in the production
factories by day and labor in the Living quarters at night. This stud
service to which I refer deals with the last two phases of the complete
equality towards which everyone has always striven. The last two
phases, you will recall, were sex and race. Equality of race will be
achieved in the long run by careful selection of the laborer-studs,
who will be chosen according to strict racial quotas. According to
the present statistics of our society, this would mean that eighty-six
percent would be white race, thirteen percent black race, and one percent
mixed others. The Equal race that will result after many generations
of active eugenics through careful white and black color-quota
mixing will therefore probably be a grayish off-white. I have used the
label "laborer-studs" to describe the maintenance crew because only men
will be used. Since a female does not necessarily have to be conscious
to conceive or to gestate, and for that matter is totally useless
during at least part of her pregnancy, it will be most convenient simply
to use unconscious Citizens of the female persuasion for this function.
This process, I might add, will greatly facilitate rapid breeding since
all the time-consuming rituals such as courtship, marriage, and even
foreplay, to which females subject us males will be completely dispensed
with. The only limiting factor left will be the sheer endurance of each
individual laborer-stud.
Obviously, race will become equal in time, but what about the
last remaining difference of Citizens, namely sex? I must confess that
there is no way known to our technology to merge sexes and still have
viable individuals left. So I have realistically concluded that this
one difference will have to be overlooked, although, as I have mentioned
previously, no care need be taken to preserve the useless manhood of the
male Citizens. That will only be of concern to us, the laborer-studs.
Now I have covered all the aspects of the truly egalitarian
utopia. The advantages to such a scheme should be obvious. Here is the
one simple, mathematically pure solution to the age old problem of
making all people truly equal. Here is a forthright plan that is realistically
worked out and completely functional within our present technological
limits. Here, then, is the reality of a utopia now.
Having worked through the basic equation and all of its corollaries,
I could come up with no rational objections to The Equitable
Solution. Surprisingly, there have been two objections raised to our
utopia. Naturally, these were of an emotional nature, so they have in
no way altered my calculations. The first of these came when I showed
my plan to my former friend, Ms. Bella Bulldyke. She said that I
always had been a sexist, and kicked me in the groin. After much very
painful consideration, I decided that the best thing to do with her
would simply be to disconnect her from the life-supporting intravenous
solution after she becomes a Citizen. The second objection came from
the Racial Liberation Army, a group that censors textbooks for gradeschool
children in public schools. They said that The Equitable Solution
was truly utopian except for the fact that the racial equality
was "reactionary" because it was eventual rather than instantaneous,
so when my program was published it would be banned from textbooks to
keep it out of the sight of young children. I decided that I will not
disconnect this group from intravenous, but I guess that there are some
people you just can't please, no matter what.
As designer of the most perfect utopia possible, I must state
my disinterest in profiting from my own plan. I am basically an
ascetic. It is therefore only fitting and proper that I should be the
one to forgo the advantages of the Citizenship which I have designed.
I have used the word "we" when speaking of the laborer-studs. This is
because I will be one of the unfortunate few who remain behind to toil
as laborer-studs. I feel that this sacrifice truly befits my ascetic
nature and therefore amply demonstrates the sincere spirit in which I
put forth this plan for implementation. I know that this may seem a
little contradictory. An ascetic could perform well in an intravenous
compound production plant, but would he perform his duties as a stud
adequately? Well, frankly, I think that I am more or less "cut out"
for this sort of work, if you know what I mean. True, the application
of my talent to such work may come with a little difficulty at first,
but there is the mild incentive of all those beautiful, warm, soft,
compliant bodies just lying there, and . . . well, I am sure things
will work themselves out. No sacrifice is too great for humanity. The
important thing is that The Equitable Solution provides the only realistic
path by which all people can become equal at last.