The Equitable Solution
THE EQUITABLE SOLUTION

by TWOEY CLARKE


"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.

twoey@twoey.com
http://www.twoey.com/







Coolest Links A Dream Date A Tasteless Joke Return Home Sign Guestbook E-Mail Me

Site Meter