Category: Review

We are still advancing and yet still in the dark. The bizarre train just keeps rolling along. We have fish face and electro-whipped prisoners. Then we have Unification Day celebration for universal approval of the Benefactor who is apparently the leader of the United State. The story is definitely going in the science fiction direction.

The first thing that caught my eye was in Record 22. This was just after the outburst from D-503 when he thought that I-330 had been captured and he was going to try and break free to save her. The doctor intervened in the situation saying that D-503 was not well and D-503 swears his allegiance to the Well Doer. There is talk about how Unification Day has some comparisons to Easter. This quote follows.

“In the ancient days the Christians understood this feeling; they are our only (though very imperfect) direct forerunners. The greatness of the ‘Church of the United Flock’ was known to them. They knew that resignation is virtue, and pride – a vice; that ‘We’ is from God and ‘I’ is from the devil.”

I think what is interesting about this is that D-503 is using this passage as justification for his behavior within the collective. When the juxtaposition is a collection of individuals acting on their own behalf. Because of that, it appears that actions of the citizens of the United State are benevolent and moral when in fact, it seems the opposite in the context of Christian thought.

What I found more relevant was the idea that elections were predetermined. There was even a comment about how in the past, indeterminate elections caused chaos. Bingo, one of the core tenants of modern political dysfunction has just been identified. Or should I say, modern philosophy.

How does capitalism flourish in modern China or Vietnam? It is all about stability, not the form of government. Stability allows foreign investment into these countries which in turn makes some rich. Those begin their own endeavors and they make more people rich. This is not something that is seen in South Sudan or Syria because no matter what the rules are, stability is far greater than how you identify your politics.

It is my argument that those that have figured out this premise are the ones that prosper the most from it. Turn the camera back to my own country and we have relative stability. This is why the truly rich and powerful don’t care which political party is running the country. The most damaging event that could possibly happen would be destabilization. Believe it or not, this is the politician game too. Don’t forget that when one person get rich, others get opportunity as well.

We have truly become a nation that values stability over freedom. Just this week, I saw the California governor arguing that citizens have a right to safety. I see safety as a proxy for for stability because it is all about limiting freedom to do so. Of course, his reference was ‘gun safety’ which certainly is taking aim at freedom. But, it could be speed limits or curfews or any other scheme that is for our own good.

Of course, our version of stability is a little messier than the United State. The ultimate case would be a society without descent which is what we have in the book. Or do we? Things are starting to show some cracks. More on that next week.

End Your Programming Routine: I’ll admit, I am getting a little lost in some of the weirdness. I am having to read things multiple times to get it. That being said, Zamyatin was exiled to France for a reason. He was dangerous to the Bolsheviks because he saw through some of their thin ploys on happiness and prosperity.

This is now the halfway point of the book. The plot is still as foggy and uncertain as ever. I don’t know where this is really going except trouble for D-503. We will get to the summary and analysis soon enough. Like all science fiction, this one is getting a little abstract for me. I will say that it is a good thing that have a science and math background. At least I can understand a little bit about what is going on.

For instance, there is a lot to do about the square root of negative one. This concept seems to bother D-503 quite significantly. In mathematics, the result of that expression is i or an imaginary number. Imaginary numbers are not real or possible. Maybe Zamyatin wasn’t as educated in math as he likes to let on through his writing because there is a mathematical proof to support this. If D-503 were really a mathematician, then he would know of such proof to accept the results.

It seems like both D-503 and O-90 are losing there minds. Upon a visit to the doctor, it is stated that D-503 is developing a soul and O-90 is not able to cope with his drifting away from her and into the arms of I-330. As a result, O-90 wants to leave him but first have an illegal conception and likely death.

As for the rest of the plot in this section, I find it a lot like Alice in Wonderland on LSD. There are dreams about sinking ships, trips into the closet tunnels, doctors with scissor lips and so on and so forth. It’s hard to tell if the translation is getting caught up in idioms or this is really some kind of psychedelic trip.

There is something that happens in passing that I think is kind of significant at least from the standpoint of mindset in the 1920s versus the mindset of today. There is a mention that 12 people were behind the thrusters of the Integral and were incinerated while testing the booster. Everyone pretty much went about their day as if nothing happened.

Maybe, just maybe this event is painting the picture of the society in We. These are nameless drones that work for the cause of the United State. There is no (legal) love, or procreation and very shallow relationships underlined by the mistrust of possible ill doings. In theory, there is no one to really miss you if you get incinerated. With the belief of not having a soul and no emotional connection, such an event has no consequence.

I do however think that the reason this short passage stands out is that there has been a shift in philosophy now versus when this was written. I think that the level of acceptable risk has gone way down over the years. Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating for increasing risk but somehow life was grittier and more real. People took chances and made mistakes that had ultimate consequences.

After some quick research, it looks like the numbers per 100,000 have declined five-fold. Combined with the advancements in trauma medicine, we have a much lower tolerance and expectation that we will see this sort of thing. The shock of such a sight has come at a new generation of people.

End Your Programming Routine: In a lot of ways, being safer is a much better way to live. I can’t help to think that the tough, fatalist attitude was a better way to go. I guess when you are mission oriented, then it certainly is. Meanwhile, enjoy the acid trip of the story. We’ll see where this ultimately goes.

As the seasons change, I find that things go back to normal. It is hard to find time to read when it is light out until 10pm. At that point, I can barely keeps my eyes open let alone focus on what I am reading. Now that the sun is setting before 8pm, I am finding that I can make preparations to go to bed earlier and therefore pick up the pace on reading (at least stay ahead a little better).

So what is going on in this section? I guess you would say that it is the surreal struggle for right and wrong. D-503 is struggling with the attraction to I-330. It is now effecting his relationships with R-13 and O-90 as well as his work. Like all subversives, he needs to hide his behavior, so D-503 gets a doctor’s note justifying that he is sick. All this is really messing with his head, so maybe he is really sick or is D-503 just seeing things for the first time?

If you are old like me, then you might remember MagicEye from the 1990s. You tried and tried to see it, then once you saw it once, you couldn’t stop seeing it. Somehow the brain just got it and you could even see the image at a distance.

Isn’t that how all propaganda goes? You have to be programmed so that you don’t see the real picture. Once the doubt has been created then you start to see it everywhere. I remember a story distinctly from eighth grade, US history.

We were studying the 20th century progressives and the era of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. We had just gone through all this mantra of Republican party is the party of small government and Andrew Jackson was vehemently anti-national bank, what heroes they were. In the next sentence, how great all these new departments of government was like the USDA. It was necessary to protect the public. We needed the Federal Reserve to regulate monetary policy and keep the value of the dollar.

I was so confused, how could both be true and right? We had spent half a year drumming these principles to just change on a dime. We got in some sort of discussion about the dollar no longer being backed by gold. I remember the teacher’s comment how thankful he was that these experts were in charge of things. They were protecting the value of the dollar so that we didn’t have some kind of hyperinflation event.

The truth be told, I believed it for many years myself. I had no reason to think that protecting our money actually meant stealing our money with controlled rate inflation. It meant borrowing today to pay back with less valuable money in the future in the form of bonds. Did you ever have a savings bond? The maturity rate on the bond is paid with the same money that you paid. So, in seven years your $25 is now $50 – magic. Oh, by the way, they invented that money to pay the $50. Think about it…

Now, I don’t there was any intent of malice. I think the teacher was really expressing his true opinion. After all, he was taught by the same system that he was teaching. That being said, does anybody see anything wrong? Kids are impressionable. It took me many years to overcome this opinion. When you don’t know anything, the first opinion is the strongest one until evidence suggests otherwise. Just like Animal Farm, it was two legs bad and now it is two legs are bad unless you are a pig.

I also remember several grade school teachers with strong opinions. Those are ones that really stick in your head; stories for another day. But it is the reason that I get really alarmed when the school system starts deviating from teaching and heads off in the direction of indoctrination. It is not necessarily that people will be taught opinions that I disagree with but that most people won’t give a flying ‘F’ to do their own research or challenge an opinion. They will just accept it as status quo and move on with life.

And even worse, people love to get indignant in their wrongness. Exhibit A, how many people are pro-Ukraine? Ever wondered why their leader is an actor? This is deadly, dinner theater where nothing is really what it seems. The best possible outcome for everyone would be to end this war where it is at. It is what the people of Crimea want, to be part of Russia and not Ukraine.

Wrapping this back to the book a little better, we see what we know to see. If no one told us that there was a 3D picture buried in the graphics, then we might not even take a second look. That is a cool design. There is a reason that the United State is walled off from the rest of the world. It is only by manipulating the variables that you can that you can achieve any source of control over society. What is even better is when you believe that you have a choice and that you are being told information from a trusted source. Those people are never coming back to truth, they cant.

I don’t know where this book is going. But, the fact that it influenced Huxley and Orwell to me hint that things aren’t going to end well for D-503. If I were to go out on a limb, I would guess that D-503 is ultimately going to get caught and punished. This will be a warning to us all to pay attention to the friendly United State. Because no matter how much they mettle in the perfect version on humanity, life finds a way to evolve around it.

End Your Programming Routine: Before the Prussian Education System, people used to be taught how to think using classical philosophy. Logic, reason and rhetoric were seen as the most valuable education tools people could possess. Now we are taught what to think because this system was developed to train factory workers. They needed to be smart enough to read, follow instructions and maybe even innovate some. We don’t want them smart enough to know that there is a better life and starting their own factories. But, life has a way and some eventually do.

The next five chapters represent about 15 pages in my book and is very close to a third of the way though it. I am very surprised that despite the fact that this was written in the 1920s in Russian and translated into English that it is not more difficult to read. Truth be told as well, it really doesn’t feel that dated either. Sure, there is lack of reference to technology that we would see as ubiquitous but still there are flying cars and telephones.

To some degree, not integrating a lot of technology makes the book more timeless. Can you imagine if they popped in the eight track and then the pager went off? It would immediately date the work and damage the science fiction aspect of futurism. I think about my first house that was built in 1923. It had two electrical circuits, no bathroom or modern kitchen. Things will look very different in 500 years from now.

There is nothing that really blocks these five chapters together necessarily other than they are a convenient grouping for me. There are certainly some universal concepts that are mentioned. Eyes are the windows to the soul, religion (faith) is a fool’s errand compared to the reliability of the state, smoking and drinking are poisonous to the body and guilt will tear you up.

What is clearly brewing is that D-503 knows and believes that the rules of the United State are correct, moral and just. That being said for some reason I-313 has targeted him and is corrupting him by her presence. The juxtaposition of what D-503 knows to be right and what is actually happening is driving extreme guilt. And that guilt is beginning to drive him crazy.

Let us look at the argument of climate change. My new employer has a goal of being carbon neutral by 2030. To do that, they are making policy changes and developing strategies to modify their own business. Then by proxy, the will start using these solutions as business offerings. Part of that strategy is employee awareness. I took some classes i.e. watch some videos on the subject.

I think that the people on the extreme edge of things would call me a climate denier. I like to think of myself as a scientist. A scientist does not ever say that the science is settled. A life’s work is always challenging your hypothesis with new data. A proper scientist says I believe this to be true and the data supports that. But, if there is new data, I will objectively look at it and evaluate it on its merits.

Some of the videos I watched were making wild claims. For instance, climate change was the reason and the cause that there is civil war in Syria. Now, lest we forget people that the Syrian civil was was a result of the Arab Spring revolution. This was a geopolitical proxy war incited by the United States to promote ‘freedom’ in mostly autocratic countries. The drought sure didn’t help but to say that is the cause is beyond stretching.

I use climate change as a reference here because there is a lot of push to make socioeconomic changes on the basis of little data. Many followers of the religion of the state think that we simply need to move from fossil fuel powered lifestyles to battery powered ones. If we simply transfer our individual CO2 generation to some corporate entities, then we can absolve ourselves of our contribution to greenhouse emissions and climate change.

Another suggestion that was made was to eat less meat. The claim is that giant factory farms raising animals adds a significant contribution to greenhouse gases. I am not for factory farming but I am sure not for plant based diets either. Do you know what runs agriculture? Fossil fuels. Fertilizer is made from cracking natural gas. Tractors and trucks run and will continue to run on them no matter how many plug in cars are on the road.

Do you see the connection yet? The religion of the state is pushing problems that benefit the stakeholders in the game. We have to eat less meat, we have to grow crops that are bioengineered to keep up with the demand. Eliminating the end consumer and only piping natural gas to the power producers and chemical companies streamlines logistics. Climate change is causing droughts endangering our ability to grow those crops in the first place. You better get on board.

I want the data. I want to know the guarantees that this is iron clad science (and not the global cooling and ice age that we were headed for in the 1980s). Most of all, where is the money where the mouths are talking? How much extra fuel does a motorcade of armored Escalades take to get to the private helicopter to get to the private airplane to go to Hawaii on a work vacation?

I heard a story from a relative that actually takes their own spoons to Dairy Queen so that they do not use disposable ones. That is how much they care and are sacrificing to do their part. And yet, are the leaders of this movement eating a plant based diet? Dare I say, no.

End Your Programming Routine: I am not against my company setting a target to be carbon neutral. I actually support it and I think it is smart to pick a direction, constrain ourselves and push solutions that work to make money. This is smart and conscious business. I am not for destroying the planet nor am I for being selfish. But let’s get real here. Before you swallow the bait, consider the motivations. Like it or not, humans are part of this world and every activity has an impact. For now, you have to pick what it is, not the religion of the state.

Like a lot of science fiction, this one as well starts off with a bang. There is little character development or explanation. Some of that comes as you read (I hope). It seems to be written as diary or log. Each chapter or entry is called a record. And they are pretty short with the longest ones being a couple pages long. But, you know all that because you are reading along.

You can see right away the similarities to Brave New World and 1984. You have the kind of laboratory like association to humanity and the overarching authoritarianism of the the United State. The main character’s number is D-503. Notice I said number and not name. All characters are referred to by their number.

D-503 talks about the monitors of society called the Guardians and how they all live in glass apartments so that they can be observed. The only time that they are given privacy is when they have scheduled intimacy. There is some sort of imbedded technology that can change the opacity of the glass on those special occasions.

More background follows as we get into Record 5. Apparently, there was a war several hundred years ago that led to the creation of the United State. Only 0.2% of the world’s population survived and now they live in this new utopia. Happiness is described as every person has been analyzed and are treated according to their biological composition.

This means that person 1 has more X factor so they are given more X. Person 2 has more Y so they are given more Y and less X. By keeping all of these factors in balance then in theory nobody is getting out of line. This is a theme in dystopian fiction. I think of the movie Demolition Man where there is no crime because everyone’s needs are met. We saw it in Brave New World and 1984 as well.

You ever hear the saying ‘life has a way’? Having spent a fair amount of time in the volcanic central Oregon, you see the one pine tree growing in the lava field where even lichen struggle to survive. The laws of nature says that tree shouldn’t be there, but it is. You could say the same thing about polio or even the flu. Without evolution, life would cease to exist.

I think of the late 1880s-1940s as the heyday of eugenics. Clearly, this book was written in the the middle of that on the way to the Nazi crescendo. It is no surprise that the thought process was if we could just breed the right people and satiate the human desires chemically then we could surely end up with a utopia.

Do we think that this is going to work, knowing ‘life will find a way’? I swear that society and entities like the school district are working to that end. One of my children was vegan for about two years a few years ago. For his birthday he had a party and all of his friends bought him cookware. Ostensibly, this was because he was complaining to all of his friends that we did not respect his choice to be vegan and would cook his food on tainted cookware (regardless if it was clean or not). My point with that was that they were sympathetic that we were torturing him because of his vegan choice.

I did not know a single vegetarian, let alone vegan peer when I was in high school. The vegetarians that I did meet were holdouts from the hippy days and always looked thin and sickly to me. This idea had to come from somewhere and that somewhere is programming. If someone eats kosher or halal or even vegetarian/vegan I can respect that is a value choice, even the undernourished vegetarians. I cannot respect a choice because it is in vogue.

But, these are the tactics that have to be used to move the needle of public opinion. We are already at the point that meat is bad because it is a contributor to climate change. Plus, not everyone can have meat, you must have money to do so. Therefore it is not socially equitable for me to have something that others cannot. We are on the path to vilify the natural human diet.

Plus, did I mention that if we buy veggie burgers from a package that we now have to rely on mega food companies to make them instead of hamburger direct from the farmer? So, that is forcing separation of humans from their food source and adding margin within the supply chain. The farther we get from the source, the easier we are to lead with false information because we loose the ability to see cause and effect.

End Your Programming Routine: Alright, so all of that was not about the book or concepts in the book but a reaction to the setting that was portrayed. In order to have utopia, you have to believe that it is possible. And to make that leap, you have to suspend reality sometimes. It’s OK to be a dreamer, but in America, I don’t have to share the same dream as you (yet).