As we gathered yesterday from the talk about communications, there is no personal authority here. One does not have to salute anybody. “We obey only impersonal commands,” Ph-107 cried with enthusiasm, thumping one fist into the palm of his other hand. “We acknowledge only the authority of the loudspeaker—the impersonal, the supra-personal personification of all of us.
“This is,” he wound up, “the ultimate logical form for democracy to take: purged of personal elements, refined until the quintessence, the very abstraction, is all that remains. Democracy on Level 7 is the only true democracy, not only in the world today, but in the whole of human history.”
For a few moments after he had finished there was silence: “Surely somebody must be sitting at the other end of the loudspeaker and giving the orders?”
Ph-107’s answer was startling: “What proof have you of that? Perhaps it’s only a tape! And even if it’s a living person it doesn’t matter, for he’s completely anonymous and so represents us all. Think of folk art and folk songs: at some time somebody must have created them, but their anonymity makes them both the expression and the possession of the people.”
At this he smiled triumphantly, and then added: “Any more questions?”
It seemed that somebody—it was a woman this time—was not altogether happy about his reasoning. “Do you imply,” she asked, “that the rule of the loudspeaker, just because it’s impersonal, must therefore be the rule of the majority and not of an élite?”
“Not merely of the majority,” came the philosopher’s ready reply. “It is the rule of all. Don’t we all, implicitly or explicitly, agree with each command we receive? Isn’t each order the most sensible one which could be given, in the present circumstances? Anyone can, if he tries, find the good reason behind every instruction. And when you’ve discovered the reason, you must agree that the loudspeaker has given the very order which you yourself would have given if the decision had been yours.” He smiled sweetly at the woman who had asked the question, and then around at his circle of listeners. “Is there anybody here who can give me one single example of a command with which he or she disagrees?”
“The command to go down to Level 7,” I felt like saying. But I realised that this order was given before we got here, and so did not qualify—not that the argument would have served any useful purpose anyway.
So, ‘in the present circumstances’, I said nothing.
The speaker seemed to have carried his point, for nobody had any more objections or questions for him to answer before the loudspeaker announced that our time in the lounge was up; whereupon, of our own free will, and therefore democratically, we left. Ph-107 alone stayed behind in the room—apparently to repeat his speech to the next lot of people. I thought that, in the present circumstances, this would be most salutary. And of course the loudspeaker must have agreed with me and given the appropriate instructions to Ph-107.
APRIL 9
I have been busier than usual for the last few days—longer on duty, because X-117 is sick. I do not know what is the matter with him. His room-mate says it is something ‘psychological’. And I find my spare time passes more quickly too—talking, arguing about things with X-107, listening to the ‘Know Thy Level’ talks.
The talks are disappointingly boring, though. Today we were given a thorough explanation of our diet. I did not listen at all attentively—a talk about a tasteless diet does not make the meals any more appetising.
One thing I did learn from this talk was that our food takes the form it does, not only because of the lack of space for storage, but also to suit the peculiar living conditions of Level 7. It contains all the necessary calories, vitamins, minerals and so forth. It is unflavored in order to prevent excessive appetite, which would be undesirable: people would want more than their carefully calculated ration; and, if they got it, they would put on weight, and then their health would suffer because of the lack of opportunities for exercise. Due consideration has been given to the problems of digestion, the prevention of stomach troubles, and so on—I think the pills we get at lunch-time have something to do with it. Back on the surface I never suffered from stomach trouble, but even so I must confess I was surprised how easily my stomach took to the new food (or lack of food) down here.
I suppose all this information was not self-evident, and that the nutrition experts have done a splendid job of work. But the talk about it was boring.
Yesterday’s talk was even more tedious, in fact I cannot even remember what it was about. No doubt it too contrived to suggest that we were living in the best of all possible ways.
Complete self-sufficiency, thanks to our wonderful scientists—and all enjoyed under perfect democracy, according to Ph-107. What could be better?
But no sunshine.
I wonder what put that into my head again. It is a pity there is no ingredient in the food to make me forget it. Even the science of nutrition seems to have its limits.
APRIL 10
In the lounge today P-867 mentioned that her fellow-psychologist was treating a very interesting case. “It’s a certain officer who has a very important function,” she said, obviously hoping to intrigue me and get me talking. “Though of course,” she added with an arch smile, “everybody has a vital job on Level 7.”
As it happened, her remark did interest me, because it sounded as if the patient might be the sick PBX officer. I described him and she confirmed that this was indeed the man.
I cannot say I had got to know X-117 at all well. When he was off duty he kept mostly to the room he shares with X-137, opposite ours, and I had hardly exchanged more than a few words with him before he went sick. But what made his case interesting for me was not his personality but his function. He had been doing exactly the same job as myself, and so besides feeling a mild esprit de corps inspired by the illness of my fellow button-pusher I was curious to know just what had happened to him. I was also wondering how serious his illness was, because while he is away I am on duty for eight instead of six hours each day.
P-867 saw that she had aroused my interest, and started supplying information at once.
The trouble with X-117, she maintained, was that he was a bad choice for Level 7. He really should not have been here at all. One of the essential conditions of selection for work down here, irrespective of what form the work would take, was that the candidate should have no strong personal attachment to anybody remaining on earth. For that reason the selectors excluded not only married persons, but also anybody who was at all close to parents, children or friends of either sex. “It’s one more way of making sure that people down here are psychologically self-sufficient,” she said.
My own recollections bear out what she said. I remember being asked at great length, during one of the interviews prior to my selection for PBX training, what family and friends I had, and what were my feelings toward them. At the time I assumed that the questions were aimed at seeing whether I was safe from the security angle. Fortunately (though I would have said unfortunately if I had known what the questions really meant) I had no strong family ties and no intimate friendships.
P-867 told me that she too was a self-sufficient person—what some laymen would call a lonely person—and so she too was considered suitable for Level 7. According to her, however, the selectors did not depend entirely on direct information about social relationship. The facts supplied by the person being interviewed were supplemented by indirect psychological evidence. The candidate told the selectors about his past and present relationships. But by various questions which were included in the long psychological tests (concerning the purpose of which the candidate knew nothing) the interviewers also found out about his propensity to form relationships in the future. The training would have been wasted if they had chosen a person who happened to be unattached but was basically sociable, for he might have formed some close attachment while he was a trainee and so made himself quite unsuitable for transference to Level 7.