In the early teens of twenty-one, new techniques of effective psychological therapy began to transform Earth culture and politics. Therapied individuals, as a new mental rather than economic class, behaved differently. Beyond the expected reduction in extreme and destructive behaviors, the therapied proved more facile and adaptable, effectively more intelligent, and therefore more skeptical. They evaluated political, philosophical, and religious claims according to their own standards of evidence. They were not “true believers.” Nevertheless, they worked with others — even the untherapied — easily and efficiently. The slogan of those who advocated therapy was, “A sane society is a polite society.”
With the economic unification of most nations by 2070, pressure on the untherapied to remove the kinks and dysfunctions of nature and nurture became almost unbearable. Those with inadequate psychological profiles found full employment more and more elusive.
By the end of twenty-one, the underclass of untherapied made up about half the human race, yet created less than a tenth of the world economic product.
Nations, cultures, political groups, had to accommodate the therapied to survive. The changes were drastic, even cruel for some, but far less cruel than previous tides in history. As Alice reminded me, the result was not the death of political or religious organization, as some had anticipated — it was a rebirth of sorts. New, higher standards, philosophies, and religions developed.
As individuals changed, so did group behavior change. At the same time, in a feedback relationship, the character of world commerce changed. At first, nations and major corporations tried to keep their old, separate privileges and independence. But by the last decades of twenty-one, international corporations, owned and directed by therapied labor and closely allied managers, controlled the world economy beneath a thin veneer of national democratic governments. Out of tradition — the accumulated mass of cultural wishful thinking — certain masques were maintained; but clear-seeing individuals and groups had no difficulty recognizing the obvious.
The worker-owned corporations recognized common economic spheres. Trade and taxation were regulated across borders, currencies standardized, credit nets extended worldwide. Economics became politics. The new reality was formalized in the supra-national alliances.
GEWA — the Greater East-West Alliance — encompassed North America , most of Asia and Southeast Asia , India , and Pakistan . The Greater Southern Hemisphere Alliance, or GSHA — pronounced Jee-shah — absorbed Australia , South America , New Zealand , and most of Africa . Eurocon grew out of the European Economic Community , with the addition of the Baltic and Balkan States, Russia, and the Turkic Union.
Non-aligned countries were found mostly in the Middle East and North Africa , in nations that had slipped past both the industrial and dataflow revolutions.
By the beginning of the twenty-second century, many Earth governments forbade the untherapied to work in sensitive jobs, unless they qualified as high naturals — people who did not require therapy to meet new standards. And the definition of a sensitive job became more and more inclusive.
There were only rudimentary Lunar and Martian settlements then, with stringent requirements for settlers; no places for misfits to hide. The romance of settling Mars proved so attractive that organizers could be extremely selective, rejecting even the therapied in favor of high naturals. They made up the bulk of settlers.
All settlements in the young Triple accepted therapy; most rejected mandatory therapy, the new tyranny of Earth.
Alice and I gradually moved from the stuffy air of an exam to a looser conversation. Alice made the change so skillfully I hardly noticed.
I wondered what it had been like to live in a world of kinks and mental dust. I asked Alice how she visualized such a world.
“Very interesting, and far more dangerous,” she answered. “In a way there was greater variety in human nature. Unfortunately, much of the variety was ineffective or destructive.”
“Have you been therapied?” I asked.
She laughed. “Many times. It is a routine function of a thinker to undergo analysis and therapy. Have you?”
“Never,” I said. “I don’t seem to have any destructive kinks. May I ask you a question?”
“Certainly.”
I was beginning to feel at ease. If Alice found me inadequate, she wasn’t giving any signs. “If Earth is so fit and healthy, why are they putting so much pressure on Mars? Doesn’t therapy improve negotiating skills?”
“It allows better understanding of other individuals and organizations. But goals must still be established and judgments made.”
“Okay.” I felt the heat of argument rise in me. “Say we are both operating from the same set of facts, and I disagree with you.”
“Do we share the same goals?”
“No. Say our goals differ. Why can’t we pool our resources and compromise, or just leave each other alone?”
“That may be possible as long as the goals are not mutually exclusive.”
“Earth is pressuring Mars, and conflict is possible. That implies we’re involved in a game with only one winner, winner take all.”
“That is one possibility, a zero-sum game. Yet it is not the only type of game in which conflict may result.”
I sniffed dubiously. “I don’t understand,” I said, meaning, I don’t agree.
“Hypothetical situation allowed?”
“Go ahead.”
“I will model the Earth-Mars conflict without complex mathematics.”
“I have the feeling you’ve modeled this at a much higher level…”
“Yes,” Alice answered.
I laughed. “Then I’m outclassed.”
“I don’t mean to offend.”
“No,” I said. “I just wonder why I’m bothering to argue.”
“Because you are never satisfied with your present condition.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You must never cease from improving yourself. From my point of view, you are an ideal human partner in a discussion, because you never close me off. Others do.”
“Does Bithras close you off?”
“Never, though I have made him furious at times.”
“Then go on,” I said. If Bithras can take it, so can I.
Alice described in words and graphic projections an Earth rapidly approaching ninety percent agreement in spot plebiscites — the integration of most individual goals. Dataflow would give individuals equal access to key information. Humans would be redefined as units within a greater thinking organism, the individuals being at once integrated — reaching agreement rapidly on solutions to common problems — but autonomous, accepting diversity of opinion and outlook.
I wanted to ask What diversity? Everybody agrees! but Alice clearly had higher, mathematical definitions for which these words were mere approximations. The freedom to disagree would be strongly defended, on the grounds that even an integrated and informed society could make mistakes. However, rational people were more likely to choose direct and uncluttered pathways to solutions. My Martian outlook cried out in protest. “Sounds like beehive political oppression,” I said.
“Perhaps, but remember, we are modeling a dataflow culture. Diversity and autonomy within political unity.”
“Smaller governments respond to individuals more efficiently. If everybody is unified, and you disagree with the status quo, but can’t escape to another system of government — is that really freedom?”