"You must have forgotten," I said, "that I came from the world of 1976 where conflict and competition were polluting and destroying this planet."
"We haven't forgotten," she replied, "that as long as competition and conflict were allowed free reign there was no great danger of pollution or overpopulation because the strong survived and the weak perished or lived lives of minimum consumption and pollution."
"But," I said, "aren't all your assistants with Macro powers called controllers, and aren't you limiting and controlling conflict and competition for your own interests?"
"Of course we are," she replied candidly, "because we are the strong, and the strong always control if they aren't shackled by a mythology of love, equality, and unity."
"You must recognize that no social, organization, including your micro society, can survive without cooperation," I stated.
"Yes," she agreed, "we cooperate so that we can better enjoy the fruits of conflict and competition."
Our conversation was interrupted at this point by our landing near a small town in the red state. Carol and I got out and this time walked all the way through this community of generally small unattractive houses. There were, however, a few larger homes, so we selected one of the largest and most ostentatious in the community. Before we knocked on the door Carol commented on the very few people we had seen in, the streets, which were almost deserted. Before I could knock on the door it was opened by a short middle-aged man with a large well-fed stomach and bright red skin. He welcomed us into a large and lavishly appointed living room saying that everyone was watching our progress on the TV, interspersed with the gladiator games from the capital city of Elgonia.
"Well," I said as we sat down in luxuriously comfortable form-hugging chairs, "I suppose that accounts for the absence of people outside. But tell us about the gladiator games you mentioned."
His face lit up and he grinned broadly, revealing a beautiful set of obviously false teeth. "They're great!" he said. "Our state gladiators represent us in the games. This gives us a chance to demonstrate our superiority."
"You mean red gladiators fight gladiators of other colors?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied, "but we have many types of competition besides the individual sword fights, fist fights, or wrestling that gladiators performed in the past. We have team conflicts that include football, baseball, and basketball as well as larger conflicts such as capture the flag."
"Well," I said, "I remember playing a game by that name when I was a boy. How does your version go?"
"When we practice it locally," he explained, "we use fewer gladiators, but when it involves interstate-competition the standard team size is 100 men who play on a standard size C.F. field of 1,000 square yards. The object of the conflict is to capture the other state's flag. We use both sword teams and bare-handed teams."
"You mean that you actually kill each other in these contests?" I asked.
"Of course," he replied, "but since the gladiators can wear armor in the sword contests, not very many are killed-only ten or twelve a week but they're still the most exciting contests we have."
"How often," Carol asked, "do you watch these games?"
"Since we work six days a week, and must attend church on Sunday morning, that leaves our evenings and Sunday afternoons for watching the games," he replied.
"My God!" I exclaimed. "Don't you get tired of watching that much fighting?"
He laughed, then said, "There's one thing that we red men never get tired of, and that's fighting!"
"But isn't that sort of brutality against your religion?" I inquired.
"The red religion holds that God created four races of men and was disappointed," he explained. "Then he created the red race to fight for the glory of God. We are the chosen race to lead all other races by our dedication to courage and our loyalty to our race and to God."
"Sounds strangely familiar," Carol commented quietly to me.
"Scoff if you like, decadent woman," he replied angrily, "but our women are proud to bear us warriors, and they are decently married to one man."
Sensing that it might be wise to change the subject, I asked, "As a representative of the chosen red race how do you manage to accept a leader like Elgon, whose skin is certainly not red?"
"It's true that his redness doesn't show," he explained, "but the soul of our president is red. He wears his skin white in sympathy for the weakness of the white race."
"Then how do you know his soul is red?" I asked.
"Because when we asked him, he replied that he would never deny it," was-his response.
That Elgon was a sly one, I thought to myself. Then I decided to ask one more question before leaving. "Tell me," I said, "what do you do that allows you to live in such a large home and in such luxury?"
"I was hoping that you would ask," he said, grinning proudly. "You see, on Micro Island courage, hard work, and a good head for business are rewarded. When I was young I was the most famous gladiator on the island, and I earned a great deal of money which I invested in land and various business ventures. Today I own half the houses in our village and most of the acreage surrounding it.
"Aren't you afraid," Carol asked as she glanced at the valuable articles in the room, "that you might be robbed of some of your wealth?"
He laughed rather scornfully and said, "We believe in the value of personal property, so we have law and order. Every tenth person on our island is a police official and we take great pride in our ability as crime fighters. I myself was appointed personally by President Elgon Ten as one of the ten top law officers in our Red State."
Carol couldn't help but insert, "Micro Island is the only place in the world where police are needed, because it's the only place in the world where crime exists. If you didn't place so much importance on personal properties, you wouldn't need to waste all that manpower on policing your people."
The fat red face of our host grew even redder as he glowered at her saying, "Great personal wealth has always gone to the strong, courageous, and clever people who are willing to take risks and live exciting and rewarding lives."
Now he sneered openly at Carol as he said, "Your Macro society has destroyed all sense of decency or pride in its members by encouraging every vice imaginable and by denying all the virtues-courage, loyalty to one's race, accumulation of personal wealth."
Getting to his feet and waddling furiously about the room he shouted, "Never in the history of our world has such evil, wicked, godlessness been permitted to flourish. But God is not mocked forever! You and all your godless, cowardly breed will soon perish from the face of this earth"
I figured we'd better leave before our host worked himself into some sort of apoplectic stroke. I thanked him for his time and we hastily took our leave, and arrived back at the transair feeling rather depressed at what our host had revealed to us. There was no doubt in our minds that he fervently believed the things he had told us. No one had forced us to choose his home to visit.
Once we were airborne again, Elgon began questioning me about my impressions so far. When I told him quite honestly that I had been depressed by what I had seen, he seemed genuinely sad and shook his great head of long, curly black hair back and forth a number of times before he said, "I'm sorry to hear that the Macro society has already so poisoned your mind against us that you can't see how proud and happy our people are, living free and decent lives."
"Elgon Ten," I asked, "do you really think that everyone-even the poor and unhealthy-is happy here on Micro Island?"
Elgon replied in an extremely sincere and persuasive manner saying, "What you don't understand, Jon -Ten, is that the most' important thing for man is not wealth, or health, or even fame, but personal pride-the feeling that he is better than the others."
He paused now to let this sink into my mind before continuing, "We here on Micro Island have provided man with many opportunities for personal pride; his own family, his own race, his own religion, his own language, his own property, and his o
wn state. All of these the Macro society has denied man and, by so doing, reduced the life of its members to a state of such monumental boredom that they don't care whether they live or die. They come to Micro Island and break our laws so they can have at least the satisfaction of dying in an exciting way even if they can't live that way."
Now it was my turn to shake my head. "I'm sorry, but I just can't see it that way, Elgon."
"I don't ask you to believe what I say," he responded. "Just believe what your eyes and ears tell you. Talk to more of our people. Talk to the poor ones. Talk to what you call the losers in our system. Why, I tell you, the most miserable cowardly loser on our island has more self-pride and joy in living than any person you'll ever meet in the Macro society. But don't take my word for it, see and hear for yourself."
I agreed to do as Elgon suggested and talk with some more people, so he dropped us off beside a village in the Brown State. Here Carol and I talked with a mother and father of 18 children. The mother was only 36. She had married at 12 and had her first child at 14 followed by the birth of one child each year thereafter-18 of them lived.
This family was very poor. Their house was small and they slept seven to a bed. However they were very proud of their family and the fact that the five eldest sons were in training to be gladiators. The whole family worked as tenant farmers, which did not supply them with enough money to survive, so the two eldest daughters had been working as prostitutes for the past several years to supplement the family income. The whole family was very proud of these two girls.
Their health, by Macro society standards, was atrocious. The mother with two babies at her breasts looked a pale and sickly 50, yet she had told me proudly that she was 14 years younger than that. The father at 39 looked younger than the mother, though most of his teeth were rotten stumps and his body looked bloated with unhealthy fat. In contrast, most of the-swarming children looked very skinny, but with complexions just as pallid as their parents.
When we arrived at their home, they were all happily watching the gladiators fighting on TV, which I learned every family purchased even if it had money for nothing else. They were pathetically proud of their dyed-brown skin, their brown religion, and their brown language, their brown state, which had the bravest and strongest gladiators in the world-according to them.
Once again we got the bit about God creating four races and being disappointed, so he created the brown race to show all the others how to live loyal, courageous, and God-fearing lives. They believed it, and were pathetically happy that they had had the great good fortune to be born as God's chosen people.
Instead of being scornful of Carol, this family were genuinely sorry for her great misfortune at having been born into the Macro society. They honestly pitied this beautiful and healthy young girl.
When I asked them if they weren't unhappy with their poverty, the father said, "We pity the rich, for they no longer have the glorious hope of obtaining riches. We have the exciting incentive of gaining wealth, and soon when our sons enter the games the money will begin rolling in. You see, we have every reason to be happy with our lives."
Carol and I left on that note feeling again depressed but no longer surprised that Elgon would want us to visit as many people as possible. It was becoming obvious that he was showing off the results of the most successful propaganda machine ever created.
Later as we were flying to the Black State I asked Elgon if he had any idea what the average life-span was on Micro Island.
"Yes," he replied. "Men live on the average of about 53 years and women about 52. Of course, you think that's terrible, but, again, let me remind you, Jon Ten, that it is not how long you live, or how much comfort and security you have that really counts. No, in the long run, it's how much pride you can take in your life and how much excitement you've had along the way."
"I don't deny," I said, "that you've been successful at persuading your people into believing what you are saying. My wonder is that even a hundred a year leave your island."
"Those are the older ones," Elgon explained, "who haven't had the advantages of all the improvements that Sela Nine, I, and our thousand controllers have instituted in the past 30 years. I spent the first 40 years here just getting things organized, but now our micro society is more exciting and interesting for everyone."
"You mean it's taken you 70 years to set up an almost perfect propaganda machine that persuades everyone to think as you want them to think," I observed.
Elgon merely smiled his imperious smile and suggested that I visit with more of his people. This we did, but the next two families, one black and one white, gave us the same old story. They were proud of their skin color, their religion, their language, their family, and their glorious state. Naturally they were happy to be God's chosen people and they were out to produce as many of their race as possible. The black family had 18 children, while the white family, due to multiple births, was the recordholder with 53 children.
The incredibly prolific white mother mentioned the growing problem with outlaws who refused to accept the wisdom of Elgon Ten and entertained the blasphemous ideas of the Macro society. She said it was the other states that had the biggest problem with this (naturally).
I began to suspect that Elgon had landed us close to "safe" communities in which he knew the inhabitants were brainwashed. I was happy to hear that people who were seeking out the ideas of the Macro society were a big problem.
I did, however, learn some interesting things from the black family. Since the father was a lawyer he explained that next to being a gladiator, being a lawyer was the most prestigious and best-paying job on Micro Island. This, he said, was because of the masses of conflicting laws. He admitted that there were so many laws covering so many life areas that everyone broke at least two or three laws every day. Of course, if one had a clever lawyer there was no problem. However, since each state had different laws, it was extremely dangerous to travel in another state. Lawyers couldn't practice in any other state, and you were sure to break some of the other state's laws. Then your different skin color would put you at a tremendous disadvantage.
I was fascinated to hear this lawyer defend their legal system in which the rich could hire lawyers to give them virtual immunity from the law, while the poor were constantly suffering from lack of legal representation. As he spoke I realized that their legal system was not much different from that of 1976, where the poor were a hundred times more likely to go to jail than the rich and were the only ones ever to suffer from capital punishment.
He explained that since the rich were obviously more valuable to the state than the poor, it was only natural that they would be able to buy greater justice. However, he carefully pointed out that the law had no favorites-it was strictly a matter of hiring a good attorney and, thus, staying in good with the government. I realized that the micro government of 2150 would applaud the actions of my government back in 1976 which fought inflation by creating– unemployment among the poor and allowed a third of its people to live in poverty while it spent billions to support corrupt governments thousands of miles from its shores. But, then, like attracts like, and corrupt governments have always tended to support other corrupt governments.
After having visited all five states, Elgon said we were ready to visit the capital city in the center of the island where all the states came together. During our flight there I asked Elgon about the island's school system. He replied that for almost 90 percent of the children formal education started at five and ended at twelve. Full-time work in the fields, factories, and stores began at this age along with the universal obligation to marry and start having children. It was possible to continue formal education in the gladiatorial, law, or medical schools if sufficient tests were passed. Since these schools were open at night, young people who passed the tests could work during the day and study at night. The wealthy had no problems, for they could hire teachers to guarantee successful passing of all the tests except those of the gladiators.
> When I asked about the state and local governments I discovered that only lawyers could hold government positions-sometimes as many as four or five of them at a time. As for Elgon's national island government, all 10,000 positions were appointed by Elgon or Sela and the most important of these-over 1,000-positions were filled with ex-members of the Macro society. I commented on this, saying, "You obviously value the Macro society environment in that it produced your best and most trusted leaders. Doesn't this contradict what you are saying about Micro Island? After all, if life was so good here it ought to produce your best leaders."
Elgon laughed at this and said, "As long as the Macro society develops individuals with Macro powers who later-get so bored and fed up with life there that they want to join me here, then I won't have to worry about setting up tutoring systems here to develop those powers."
"But obviously you don't get people with highly developed Macro powers or you wouldn't consider me at the tenth level when I am really only at the second level," I observed.
Elgon merely changed the subject by pointing ahead to his capital city of Elgonia.
"Take a look at it," he said, "and realize it's the only large city in the world, because the Macro society refuses to allow its members the joys of city living."
I looked down and saw a very small city compared with 1976 standards, for it had only 30,000 inhabitants, and a quarter of these worked for Elgon's government. Over 100,000 people worked in Elgonia, but since the presidential territory, of approximately ten miles in diameter, was stateless, most workers preferred to live in their states and commute. There were many government buildings in the center of the city surrounding the magnificent presidential palace that looked somewhat like the Taj Mahal of India.
Elgon Ten was obviously very proud of his capital city and talked at some length on the importance of his strong central government. He rattled off a long list of governmental agencies such as an agency of agriculture, commerce, labor, games, law, education, and intelligence, to name a few. I was particularly interested in the fact that Elgon had nine different intelligence agencies for gathering information about his people. When I questioned him about their functions, however, he replied that intelligence agencies functioned best when their operations were completely secret and, therefore, he couldn't talk about them, even to me. Then he surprised me by saying, "However, Jon Ten, as soon as you join our government I'll make you a Vice President and tell you all about our intelligence operations."
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