Ah, yes, today i worked a bit on a piece that is a dialogue between Dystopian Cuddyback and Livvy’s father. It is WAY unpolished and needs work, but I am using this particular segment to play on political differences of the time that led this particular dimension to stray from the current political model into a model that attempts to espouse the ideals of democracy within a nation while leaving the governance of each city, and its economy in its own hands, this creates a sort of separation of idealism’s into different citypods. Conceptually, there is something to what I am trying to do in this chapter, but this will NOT be a chapter I simply write and then edit for spelling and grammar issues.
I am going to have to look at this chapter from a hundred different angles and do a LOT of research into the philosophical tenets which each side discusses. What is fascinating about this project, to me, is that I get to do a bunch of things not normal to my writing which can be a challenge, but one with a worthwhile reward.
So, after the father-in-law, a philosophy professor, gives his rant on why the new structure of local citypods with their own governance and protection and a “MFG” (Minimalist Federal Government) whose only responsibility is national border defense and base infrastructure to act as the conscience of the whole, the young Cuddyback replies with a line I really like, but needs some work still:
‘I suppose much can be said about the benefits of this new societal structure, but what does that really say about the future of the race as a whole? I mean, are we doomed to force ourselves into these little enclaves of existence merely because we are too afraid of what we might become otherwise? We sit in this walled off city, no better than the Biblical city of Jericho and we praise the move forward, but this really is more reminiscent of an era before we could say that the world became civilized. Does this mean that civilization as a general concept was a bad thing? Or does it mean that we as a people were unable to do so properly making the human race the bad concept?’
Now, I like this because he is questioning more than just whether a governing system was right or wrong and questioning how the human condition had devolved to the point where voluntary segregation was considered a universally good idea.
After a little longer diatribe on the dangerous end that the younger man sees he asks the father “what say you to this line of thought?” And I did something fun with the beginning of his thought process:
I say it sounds as if you are more fatalistic than should be required at such a tender age. The future is no more set in stone than is the indelible image of my face upon some distant planet.
Now, the great part of that last line, is that in each separate world, the inhabitants have no clue that there is a truth to the “many worlds’ theory proffered by physicists. And that makes his statement ironic as there is the image of his face at another planet…
Anyway, just some fun with words today