The 2084 Precept (35 page)

I paused. Jeremy was typing something into
his laptop. He was frowning and he didn't look up. I poured myself
some coffee and continued.

"The number of countries on the planet may
have changed again this morning for all I know. And in my part of
the world, the Scots wish to split from the English, the Belgians
want to divide themselves into a Flemish-speaking country and a
French-speaking one, the Spanish want at least three countries,
Spain, Catalonia and the Basque country, and there are stirrings
from Andalusia, Galicia and Asturias as well. Corsica wants to be a
brand new country, it doesn't want to continue being part of
France. And so on around the globe. It never stops and it never
will."

"Fascinating. But nauseous and pathetic in a
way," said Jeremy. "One dominant species, one undivided planet, is
all I have ever come across before. I have seen none of the strife,
mistrust, aversion, antipathy, aggressiveness, hate and brutality
or whatever else it is that causes your species to separate itself,
if you will forgive me, in such a ludicrous and ridiculous
fashion."

"Of course I forgive you," I said, "and both
of your chosen adjectives are entirely appropriate. They are the
very words my friend Steve used to describe the split of
Czechoslovakia."

"Czechoslovakia?"

"Yes. That was one of the repressed
countries forming part of the Soviet-dominated European empire. And
when that empire fell apart, as empires tend to do, the
Czechoslovaks spent the first few days celebrating their freedom
from the Soviet yoke, and the next few days saying 'Ah…but wait a
minute…oh dear, oh dear…we can't live together…we don't even
like
each other, we have to split into two countries, we’ll
call them the Czech Republic and Slovakia and be separated by
frontiers and passports'".

"That is the second time you have mentioned
'separated by frontiers and passports', Peter. What exactly do you
mean by that?"

"Well…we…that is the human race…have decided
that we should not be allowed to wander around our own planet
without authorization from our birdbrains, those weird and
wonderful creatures voted into power by the masses. Authorization
by our birdbrains, or rather their minions, at
both
ends of
the journey, by the way. And in many cases, passports are not
enough, we need to go to the trouble of asking those minions for
visas as well—and they, of course, are not always granted."

"Do I understand that, not only are you not
allowed to
live
where you want to on your relatively small
planet, but you are not even allowed to
travel
around
on it unless other members of your species allow you to?"

"Yes, Jeremy. Astounding, I know. But yes.
Precisely so."

"Hmm…a most extraordinary species."

"And while we are on the subject of travel,"
I continued, "we can't do that without killing ourselves either.
There are 380,000 travel deaths per year; planes, trains, ships,
road vehicles. That is over 1,000 deaths per day. Every day.
Non-stop. And far more injured, far more maimed for life."

"You mean that your intelligence has not yet
reached a level…let me put that a different way. You haven't yet
found out how to travel around your own planet without killing
yourselves, and what's more, at the rate of over 1,000 per day?
1,000 humans for each single spin of your planet on its axis?"

"That is correct, Jeremy. That is the way it
is. We still haven't figured out how to travel without killing
ourselves."

"But you consider yourselves to be
intelligent."

"Oh yes, we do, we do indeed.
Very
intelligent"

"Then that in turn denotes a colossal amount
of arrogance. Which is also the cause of your inability to
self-evaluate. Which in turn prevents you from classifying
yourselves as stupid."

"Yes."

"Well…please continue."

"Yes, well, as I was saying, we, as a
species, cannot tolerate each other—within or without the
innumerable boundaries we have created for ourselves. Consequently
we use about 100 million human beings as military personnel,
soldiers, sailors and airmen. Their job is either to attack and
kill other humans, or to defend against other humans trying to
attack and kill them, or to represent a threat which enables us to
impose our own interests on others, or to defend against others who
are threatening to impose their interests on us. Of course, not all
of these military forces are successful. But usually, on this
planet, the strongest military force wins."

"And these are the sole purposes for
creating such forces?"

"Yes, Jeremy, and being the way we are, they
are very necessary ones too. But they are not enough. Military
forces are used mainly, although not always, to resolve
cross-border altercations between different members of our species.
Within our borders, however, we have the same issues and we need
something else. We call them police forces. An additional estimated
15 million human beings are employed all over our planet as
policemen. Without them, the human species would descend
immediately, rapidly and unchecked into total anarchy. This way we
maintain a controlled, partial form of anarchy.”

“None of those religious leaders,” I
continued, “who have been recommending peace for a few millennia by
praying and praying and praying, and regularly releasing small
white birds into the air, would be able to prevent it. Listen to
this, Jeremy, even
with
the police, the situation on this
planet is a horrendous one. In addition to the murders I told you
about—don't forget, one murder per minute according to the U.N.
statistics—there are 8 million rapes of women each year, including
gang rapes. That is nearly 1,000 rapes
per hour
. And then
there are huge numbers of other crimes—simple theft, armed robbery,
corruption, kidnapping, child molestation, fraud and a whole host
of others, you name it, you’ve got it. All over the planet, and not
confined to any specific region.

"So you need policemen as well."

"Yes…and as I said, we need millions of them
to prevent the descent into a terrifying, lawless, barbaric abyss.
Airports, railway stations, Jewish and similar ethnic and religious
establishments all need to be watched 7/24 in many countries.”

“Because of…?

“Because of terrorists or because of simple
criminals, many of them imported. The bad news is, however, that
even the combined military and police forces are not sufficient. We
need
secret
police in addition: the CIA, the NSA, the KGB as
it used to be called, MI5 and all the others. It's just the way we
are, we cannot exist in any other form."

"It is absolutely impossible to classify you
humans as a benevolent species."

"Quite."

"And despite this massive deployment of
various constraint organizations, you still don't seem to be able
to adequately control yourselves."

"Nothing could be truer, Jeremy. We
certainly try, but an average 7% of the human race is constantly
behind bars, in prison. The ones we have caught and punished, that
is. That means around 500 million human beings."

Jeremy's eyes were pretending to be chapel
hat pegs again.

"So there are 500 hundred million of you
behind bars at any given point in time," he repeated, looking at me
as if he suspected me of intentionally trying to deceive him, or of
trying to pull his leg, or of taking the piss, or, if you are
German, of trying to pull him over the table.

"There certainly are," I said. "We are the
only species on the planet which is mentally sick enough to have to
adopt such a system for to protect ourselves."

"What surprises me about you, Peter, is that
none of this seems to trouble you. For example, you keep saying
'that's the way things are'. Nothing seems to upset you."

"Well…it doesn't upset me. That doesn't mean
to say that I necessarily respect or have a fondness for the human
species, of which, of course, I am myself a member. No, I do
not
like how we treat ourselves and I do
not
like how
we treat our animals and I do
not
like how we treat our
planet. But I can't do anything about it, we are the products of
nature and evolution. The majority wins. I merely observe."

"But doesn't anybody try to do anything
about it?"

"Hah, Jeremy, not the first time you have
asked that question. The answer is yes indeed, some people do, they
always have and they presumably always will. We have rebellions, we
have revolutions, we have civil wars, martyrs die, but in the end
it doesn't change anything. Let me tell you about a short story I
read once. There was a town in the Middle Ages, surrounded by high
walls, manned watch towers at regular intervals, and the populace
was more or less imprisoned inside. They were only allowed out
under armed supervision to plough the fields, perform the
harvesting and so on. Well, one day they rebelled, they stormed the
watch towers, they killed the guards, they tore open the city gates
and they ran out into the countryside shouting 'we are free",
'liberty at last', and so on and so forth. And free indeed they
were. Their leaders and others had died martyrs' deaths and those
remaining were as free as flying elephants in a zero-gravity
universe. But after a while, one began to notice that they were
forming into groups. And in each group, there was a man standing on
an orange box. 'Now that we are free,' said one of them, 'I would
like to explain to you how I think we should organize ourselves…'.
'We now have our liberty,' said another, 'and I believe that I
should propose to you the best way in which we should proceed…';
and so on and so on throughout all of the groups. And the point of
the story? The point of the story was that everything went back to
being more or less the same as it had been before."

"The same as it had been before?"

"Yes. Various groups of humans listening to
various other humans telling them what should be done, how
everything should be organized, who should be in charge, who should
have what powers, and so on. It's the only way we know how to
operate, Jeremy. The problem of course was that the proposals in
each of the groups were different to the proposals in each of the
other ones. And so the arguments started up, the humans’ favorite
hobby. And to resolve that problem, they decided that the best
thing to do would be to start voting. The masses should decide for
themselves. And the most powerful group, the one with the most
votes, would rule. The obvious anomaly in all of that is that only
10% of the human race is really intelligent, but…it's the majority
vote which gets to decide who is going to run things. And if the
victorious party received only 51% of the vote versus 49% for the
other, then so be it. It’s obvious that the two or more sides are
going to spend most of their time arguing. And of course, the
really funny thing is that the clowns who receive the votes and the
power to govern us are also part of the human race.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that only 10% of them are
intelligent as well.”

"Haha, I get it. But back to arguing.
Arguing is one of your species' favorite activities."

"Indeed it is. We just cannot agree. Ever.
It's in the nature of the beast. And sometimes we do our
disagreeing with weapons—but we've dealt with that already—and
sometimes we do it without. We only need to listen to the
politicians on any given day, in any legislative body in any of the
countries anywhere on the planet. Or to the television talk shows.
All they do is argue, argue, argue. Century after century after
century and on into infinity, infinity being an exaggeration,
needless to say. All of them trying to force their own views onto
everybody else and, while I'm about it, that goes for our religions
as well. And, if you will forgive me for repeating myself, Jeremy,
it is just the way we are. As I have said, I merely observe—usually
with a mild and cynical interest but also from time to time with a
metaphorically open mouth."

I paused. Jeremy just sat there, trying to
take it all in. I decided to continue, to complete the picture for
him, give him his money's worth.

"And because of all the arguing,” I resumed,
“in addition to the soldiers and the police and the secret police
we also have to employ vast numbers of human beings as lawyers to
resolve our non-violent disputes, or to try to."

"Vast numbers of lawyers?"

"Yes. There are about 11 million lawyers
worldwide at the last count. Our species could not exist without
them. There is a firm belief that if we start a nuclear war, there
will be only two surviving life forms—ants and lawyers."

"And, according to my research, cockroaches
as well." Jeremy grinned. "Well, at least non-stop dissonance is
one weakness you recognize in yourselves."

"Yes, Jeremy, but at the same time, the
lawyers themselves disagree with each other. And therefore we have
to employ a lot of people we call judges.

"You'll be telling me soon that even the
judges disagree," said Jeremy with a chuckle.

"Don't chuckle, Jeremy! The judges do indeed
also disagree, and so we have to employ even more human beings to
constitute what we call higher courts and appeals courts."

Jeremy might have chuckled before but he
didn't chuckle again. He looked despondent. It was clearly proving
difficult for him to absorb and understand this confusion, the
ghastly, chaotic, revolting mess that I was describing.

"What a system," he sighed. "What a society.
What a species. And please don't tell me again that it's just
because it's the way you are."

"Understood, Jeremy, understood. Would you
like me to stop or continue?"

"Continue, Peter, if you would please. It's
all information that will assist me."