Yes, and that word “liquidation,” and the word “sacrifice”! Owen winced.
Suppose one assumed, never mind why, that painful or destructive experimentation on human beings without their consent was never justified by prospective benefits to other human beings, no matter how few there were in one group or how many in the other. Call it the nonequivalence principle. That would mean the steep decline of biology, sociology, psychiatry, and medicine.
But there was worse to come. No distinction between human beings and animals was implied by the “nonequivalence principle.” It was religion, not science, that distinguished human beings from the rest of the animal kingdom. If lower animals could not be used in experiments because they could not give consent, that would mean the end of experimental biology.
She knew what Eliza would say: “What is the general solution to problems of this kind?” And she would reply, “To decide what one believes, and then act accordingly.”
But she did not believe in religion, and she could no longer bear to act on her belief in science.
There was a Hindu sect, the Jains, whose reverence for life was such that they would not even kill an ant. Would they take medicine for a tapeworm? Probably not.
Or something closer to home, the Christian Scientists (“neither Christian nor scientists,” her mother had said with icy scorn). There had been a family of them in the neighborhood, and she remembered her father saying that they had changed their attitude when the son fell ill with leukemia. Yes, and had he been cured? She seemed to remember that there had been a cure or a remission, but he had died anyhow a few years later, and what did that prove?
Surely there had to be some middle ground, a way to avoid being absurd or cruel? Perhaps from one point of view mosquitoes had as much right to exist as she did, but whenever she got a chance she traded their lives for her comfort. And she would kill an internal parasite that was making her ilclass="underline" yes, even an intelligent parasite. That was the way things were. The lion did not lie down with the lamb in this world, not until the lamb was dead.
For that matter, why shouldn’t vegetables have souls? There was that group in England that worshiped plants, and grew gigantic cabbages. Did they eat the vegetables? Presumably, but no doubt they apologized first. Would it be all right to kill a mosquito if she apologized?
Well then, what about a human subject, would an apology do the trick? Wasn’t that a little too easy? “I’m sorry, Ms. Weinstein, but we’re going to kill you now.” That was the trouble: logic led you straight to the gas ovens in one direction, or to nakedness and grass-eating in the other.
Wouldn’t it be simpler and more honest to say, “Yes, life is unfair, but I happen to be on top and I like it here, and in order to stay on top I will kill you, with or without an apology”? Then at least everybody would know where they stood. And if people on the bottom didn’t like it, they could overturn society, as, in fact, they were doing right now.
But, О God, that was social darwinism again, “Nature red in tooth and claw.” Surely there had to be something better? More sensible, more stable? Something that would let her sleep at night?
20
Through his own attorney Stevens found a legal firm that specialized in the affairs of organizations like the one he had in mind. He made an appointment, talked to a senior partner, and was assigned to a somewhat more junior member of the firm, a sleek blond man named Rinaldo Edwards who spoke perfect English.
“The money in these things comes mainly from five sources,” Signor Edwards told him. “First the seminars, typically three days but sometimes as much as a week. Then initiation fees and dues. Then advanced training, where you teach people to conduct seminars and training sessions themselves. You can have as many levels as you want—people training the people who train other people, and so on, and of course each time they advance to another level, they pay a progressively higher fee. Then major contributions, grants and bequests. Then publications—holos, newsletters, books, pamphlets, all that sort of thing. As a rule of thumb, I would say that the seminars account for forty percent of the total, initiation fees twenty percent, contributions twenty, advanced training maybe ten, publications ten. Dues are negligible at first, but become important as the organization matures.”
“What about costs?”
“Usually quite small at first, although there isn’t any rule about that. The seminars pay for themselves,* and that includes all the clerical work, publicity, and so on. The people who have taken the advanced training are paid out of the earnings of the seminars they conduct. You have to pay some people salaries, of course, but that money comes out of the seminars too. I can show you some tables of seminar costs and expenses. The optimal fee for a three-day seminar would probably be in the neighborhood of twelve hundred new lire. Above that, attendance tends to drop off, but it also drops off below that figure—people won’t go to a seminar if it is too cheap, because they think it can’t be worth anything.”
“And legal costs?”
“Well, that depends on what you want to do, of course, but I would recommend setting up at least two corporations right away: one an educational corporation, which under Italian law can do pretty much whatever it wants to, and another for publications. Our time and costs for that will run you somewhere around two thousand lire. If we defend you in a lawsuit, there isn’t any way of predicting the cost, but I’d say it would be prudent to set aside, as soon as possible, a legal fund of at least a million lire.”
“What sort of lawsuits would you anticipate?”
“Oh, people claiming they haven’t benefited from the instruction or have been somehow damaged by it, or have been induced to turn over assets by fraud. You have to expect that sort of thing. It may never happen, but it’s best to be prepared.”
That summer in Paris, members of an organization called Le Comite d’Action Contre l’Abomination stormed the entrances of governmental and corporate buildings and tore down detect-and-destroy devices. As fast as new devices were installed, they were demolished too. A spokeswoman said, “Why do our masters hide behind these machines? Is it because they know that if they come out, they will be killed for their abominable crimes? Come out, you butchers, and let us see your faces before you die!”
During the next few weeks, a number of unexplained deaths took place among high officials and officers of large corporations; government, finance and industry were in turmoil. Similar actions spread to the rest of Europe, then the United States, South and Central America, Africa, and the Far East.
In July five members of an organization calling itself Citizens Revolting Against Politicians forced their way into a control room at UBS in New York while a talk-show host was interviewing Harold W. Geiger, the president of General Motors and a Republican candidate for nomination to the presidency of the United States. “Mr. Geiger,” the host was heard to say, “is it true that you are a well-known asshole?”
“Well, Jim, that’s an interesting question,” said Geiger comfortably. “I think I can truthfully say, that in my thirty years as a corporate executive ...”
“But answer the question,” the host was heard to say in a voice that was not quite his own. “Is it true that you fart in the bathtub and bite the bubbles as they come up?”
“Yes,” said Geiger judiciously, “I’d say that’s a fair statement, Jim.”
A wild-eyed young man scuttled onto the set and spoke in a whisper to the host, then to Geiger. The two stood up, removing their blouse mikes, and walked off the set, followed by raucous laughter and the sound of raspberries. The set remained vacant for the rest of the half-hour, while three voices sang in close harmony a song whose refrain went: