"William Tenn - Null-P" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tenn William)

But another delegate who had observed widely and asked many searching ques-tions went back to
his native Toulouse (French culture had once more coagulated in Provence) to define the philosophical
foundations of the Abnegite Revolution.
In a book which was read by the world with enormous interest, Michel Gaston Fouffnique,
sometime Professor of History at the Sorbonne, pointed out that while twentieth-century man had
escaped from the narrow Greek formulations sufficiently to visualize a non-Aristotelian logic and a
non-Euclidean geometry, he had not yet had the intellectual temerity to create a non-Platonic system of
politics. Not until Abnego.
"Since the time of Socrates," wrote Monsieur Fouffnique, "Man's political view-points have been in
thrall to the conception that the best should govern. How to de-termine that 'best,' the scale of values to
be used in order that the 'best' and not mere undifferentiated 'betters' should ruleтАФthese have been the
basic issues around which have raged the fires of political controversy for almost three millennia. Whether
an aristocracy of birth or intellect should prevail is an argument over values; whether rulers should be
determined by the will of a god as determined by the entrails of a hog, or selected by the whole people
on the basis of a ballot tallyтАФthese are alterna-tives in method. But hitherto no political system has
ventured away from the im-plicit and unexamined assumption first embodied in the philosopher-state of
Plato's Republic.
"Now, at last, America has turned and questioned the pragmatic validity of the axiom. The young
democracy to the West, which introduced the concept of the Rights of Man to jurisprudence, now gives
a feverish world the Doctrine of the Lowest Com-mon Denominator in government. According to this
doctrine as I have come to understand it through prolonged observation, it is not the worst who should
governтАФas many of my prejudiced fellow-delegates insistтАФbut the mean: what might be termed the
'unbest' or the 'non-elite.'"
Situated amid the still-radioactive rubbish of modern war, the people of Europe listened devoutly to
readings from Fouffnique's monograph. They were enthralled by the peaceful monotonies said to exist in
the United States and bored by the academician's reasons thereto: that a governing group who knew to
begin with that they were "unbest" would be free of the myriad jealousies and conflicts arising from the
need to prove individual superiority, and that such a group would tend to smooth any major quarrel very
rapidly because of the dangerous opportunities created for imaginative and resourceful people by
conditions of struggle and strain.
There were oligarchs here and bosses there; in one nation an ancient religious order still held sway,
in another, calculating and brilliant men continued to lead the people. But the word was preached.
Shamans appeared in the population, ordinary-looking folk who were called "abnegos." Tyrants found it
impossible to destroy these shamans, since they were not chosen for any special abilities but simply
because they represented the median of a given group: the middle of any population grouping, it was
found, lasts as long as the group itself. Therefore, through bloodshed and much time, the abnegos spread
their philosophy and flourished.
Oliver Abnego, who became the first President of the World, was President Abnego VI of the
United States of America. His son presidedтАФas Vice-PresidentтАФover a Senate composed mostly of his
uncles and his cousins and his aunts. They and their numerous offspring lived in an economy which had
deteriorated very, very slightly from the conditions experienced by the founder of their line.
As world president, Oliver Abnego approved only one measureтАФthat granting preferential
university scholarships to students whose grades were closest to their age-group median all over the
planet. The President could hardly have been accused of originality and innovation unbecoming to his high
office, however, since for some time now all reward systemsтАФscholastic, athletic, and even
industrialтАФhad been adjusted to recognition of the most average achievement while castigating equally
the highest and lowest scores.
When the usable oil gave out shortly afterwards, men turned with perfect calm-ness to coal. The last
turbines were placed in museums while still in operating con-dition: the people they served felt their
isolated and individual use of electricity was too ostentatious for good abnegism.