Tag: The Obsolete Man

The Serenity Equation

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Modern human life is the story of increased efficiency.  Harnessing ever increasing amounts of energy and directing our enormously expanded knowledge of the physical world around us we have been able to change the way humans live.  We have produced enough food to make the whole world obese and we have created industries that provide modern wonders like cell phones and computers to virtually every man, woman and child on the planet.  We have invented medicines and treatments that have increased the average human life expectancy by decades.

But there is only one commodity that we haven’t been able to increase and that is peace.  And I don’t mean the cessation of war.  I’m talking about tranquility or spiritual serenity or call it just plain peace.  The amount of peace in our lives has been whittled down over the years until presently it’s only experienced for short periods when we are cut off from the world around us.

And that is profoundly wrong.  Human beings need peace to thrive.  And the way the modern world works is to strip away inefficiency from our lives.  But along with the inefficiency, we have stripped away the things that gave our lives meaning and a sense of belonging to something permanent and valuable.  We’re expendable and obsolete almost as soon as we’re grown.  And every day machines are produced that make us even more obsolete.  This isn’t progress.  It’s a death cult.  And it’s the thing that is convincing me that we’re approaching a breaking point.  If this goes on, we will very soon reach a point where human beings will have to destroy the system that is trying to declare them superfluous or they themselves will be destroyed.

Now that sounds melodramatic and apocryphal but I actually believe it to be true.  And it doesn’t mean we’ll have to rise up and smash the factories and eliminate automation with sledgehammers.  Political action is much more efficient.  The people who are automating out of existence the careers of everyone will have to retool to alter their projects so that their products provide resources for humans in their careers.

Now, you may ask how that’s supposed to work.  I really don’t know but that’s what has to happen.  Human beings will not go quietly into that good night.  This is our world.  Being replaced by AI isn’t something we should just sit back and watch happen.  And that is why populist politics is growing in strength.  Everyone is sick of the elites pushing for some sort of feudal future with AI replacing the middle classes and serfs kept around to cut the grass of the rich.

You know come to think of it, maybe sledgehammers are the answer.  A crowd armed with pitchforks and torches showing up at the headquarters of Google and burning it down would go a long way toward changing the way things are done in this country.  Or maybe we institute a “progressive” tax schedule.  It works like this.  If a tech company’s products increase the number of middle-class jobs in an industry within a certain salary range your taxes go down.  If they decrease the number of those jobs they go up.

There, that’s not so hard.

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 2 Episode 29 – The Obsolete Man

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Burgess Meredith is the obsolete man of the title.  He is Romney Wordsworth and his self-declared occupation is Librarian.  Unfortunately, Romney lives in a future authoritarian state that has eliminated books and made their possession a capitol crime.  By declaring himself a librarian he has by definition defined himself as an obsolete man and therefore legitimately categorized as requiring termination (death).

The opening scene has Romney entering a cavernous hall where the Chancellor is standing at a raised lectern that is much higher than a long table at which his assistant is seated reading out the charges against Romney.  Romney is forced to step into a glaring spotlight while the Chancellor harangues him and mocks his claims of relevancy and worth.  The Chancellor and his assistant talk of the charges and the needs of the state in quasi-liturgical language and chant the charges and verdict as if they were priests of some fanatical blood-thirsty cult.  Because of Romney’s refusal to recant he is sentenced to death.  But he is allowed to chose the method and location of his death.  As the location, he chooses his own apartment and asks that his death be televised.  And as one of the details he asks that the details of the method not be shared with anyone but himself and the executioner.

On the day of the execution Romney invites the Chancellor to see him at his apartment before the execution.  During this visit we learn that Romney is a deeply religious man and has a Bible hidden in his room and that he is at peace with his approaching death.  Then he tells the Chancellor what the method of his death will be.  A powerful bomb is hidden in the apartment and at midnight it will explode killing everyone in the apartment.  And at this juncture Romney reveals that he has locked the door so that the Chancellor cannot escape the bomb either.

While all of this is being televised, we get a chance to compare the strength and courage of the god-fearing meek, mild, librarian and the atheistic, athletic, brash leader of the state as they both stare down their own deaths.  As the appointed hour approaches the librarian is reading aloud the psalms that comfort the afflicted while the Chancellor becomes more and more panicked until finally, he shouts “for God’s sake let me out.”  And because he implored in God’s name, Romney unlocks the door just in time to allow the Chancellor to escape with his life.  The scene ends with Romney bowing his head in prayer as the explosion rocks the building and the Chancellor cowers at the bottom of the staircase below the door to the booby-trapped room.

In the next scene the Chancellor is walking into the cavernous hall and suddenly he is in the harsh spotlight and his assistant is now at the high pulpit denouncing him for cowardice and declaring him obsolete.  He tries to defend himself but is shouted down and now the mob of agents of the state surround him and drag him to the floor where they exact the penalty for obsolescence right then and there with their own bare hands.

This is a very iconic episode.  Basically, we are looking at the imagery of 1984.  The all-powerful state crushes anyone who defies it and does so in the public eye to make an example that none can ignore.  Burgess Meredith is excellent as a man of integrity and faith who refuses to knuckle under and save his life by betraying everything he believes in.  And the Chancellor is delightfully strident and bombastic.

A.