The Obsolete Man
Romney Wordsworth
is summoned into a court, a court in the possible future had any dictator
survived and taken over the world, or at least had total autonomy over their
own people. They revel in the destruction
of human freedom, despise logic, and obfuscate truth. Wordsworth is up for extermination because he
is obsolete, being a librarian in a time where all books have been
obliterated.
He is laughed at when he
reveals his occupation, and the chancellor tells him that without books, there
is no reason for librarians to exist, just as there is not reason for ministers
to exist since "the state has proven that there is no God."
Wordsworth counters that "there is a
God" and that the state cannot merely "erase God with an edict." The chancellor tells him that he is obsolete
because he has no function, while Wordsworth defends that no human is obsolete,
that "truth cannot be destroyed by burning pages," and that simply
existing allows humans to create ideas that remain long after they are
gone. The chancellor rants on that the
state is strong, has no use for non-functioning partitions, and that all literature
is meaningless because it is without substance and significance in
society.
Wordsworth is found to be
obsolete, so he must be "liquidated."
He has the option of choosing his form of death, and can choose any time
in the next 48 hours. He chooses to have
an assassin that will have to keep secret his method of death and also to have
an audience, through television, that will watch his demise. The chancellor is happy to do so, getting
excited over the prospect since mass executions have, in the past, had an
"educative effect on the population."
The people of the state agree because they want to show the world how
this "obsolete man, this librarian, dies." The chancellor goes to Wordworth's house
minutes before his planned death to prove that the state has no fears. The chancellor says that Stalin and Hitler
had the right ideas, but that they did not go far enough because too many undesirables,
the old, sick, and deformed, were left to form resistance groups and eventually
overthrow the state. The chancellor
condescendingly tells Wordsworth that he should feel free to display emotion
for his viewers, and do whatever he feels the need to, knowing that it will
make Wordsworth look weak.
Wordsworth
then reveals that he only called on the chancellor to prove the point of
whether the state is as strong as it claims to be, by locking the chancellor
in his room and observing his reactions.
Wordsworth says that he will use his remaining time to read his Bible,
the possession of which is a crime punishable by death, so it is the only
possession which has any real value to him.
The chancellor yells for help and calls for guards to open the door, but
a mandate that he put in place himself has isolated the two, since no one is
allowed to stay around the one who is being put to death. Wordsworth also tells the audience that
helping out a high ranking elected official would make the state look weak, so
he is on his own now, and that only death, the great equalizer, will show how
little difference an obsolete man and an official who has garnered many
accolades have "in the eyes of God."
Wordsworth selects verses and reads them off for the public audience to
enjoy while waiting for his demise.
Moments before his selected time, the chancellor breaks down and pleads
to be released "in the name of God," a request to which Wordsworth
gladly carries out by allowing him to leave the room, promptly before being
decimated. The next day, the chancellor
has been found to be obsolete, since he was a coward on television and made the
state look weak. He is dragged away by
his former subordinates and torn to shreds.
Rod Serling ends the episode by stating that any states, entity or ideology
that fails to recognize the worth, dignity, and rights of man are obsolete.
Machiavelli would
have lauded such a state, but very obviously, this state yielded absolute power
and many people suffered for it, merely by doing their job and that job
becoming unnecessary. Doing anything
necessary to gain power may be nice for those on top, but all the people that
were stepped on or killed along the way far outweigh the importance of ruling
absolutely. Although this dictator most
likely precisely followed much of Machiavelli's teachings, this type of world
seems much more of a dystopia to me than a utopia.
Much of Hobbes' teachings
are included in this episode also, as the leviathan, or all those in power
ruling over the others, can make any decision they want, without fear of repercussions.
All those in favor of the state are
allowed to live, and anyone weak or in opposition to it are killed. The people under that rule have only one
freedom: to live until the state determines you should no longer do so. Granted, this is taking the leviathan theory
to the extreme, but history has come close to this type of government before.
Rousseau
also believed in ruling by the will of the people, or what is best for the
state, and obviously what is best for the state is not always what is best for
each individual. What is best for the
whole community, preventing war and social upheaval, is not best for the
people, as all freedoms are removed if the will of the state is followed. This only leads to being forced to live
together and get along, instead of doing so by choice or necessity.
Finally, Marx and
Bentham both believed in equality and making sure that the rights of all are
considered, with everyone having equal say and no one being above anyone else. However, these views are easily twisted, as
evidenced by World War II and the subsequent years after it. Hitler, a man who brought great prosperity to
his people, was elected fairly by the people, and convinced them that they would
have better lives if he was elected. He
proved himself by doing exactly what he promised, but at a cost: jobs were
created as people, mostly Jews, were either killed or pushed out of their jobs.
The people, however, either oblivious or
uncaring, were merely happy to have an income and freely pledged loyalty to the
fascist state that had provided in their time of need. On the other end of the spectrum, Stalin also
promised to better his country, the USSR , and did so at the cost of
millions of soldiers and workers through expansion of the infrastructure and boundaries
of the Russian Motherland. This
communist state promised to give everyone equality, but equal poverty is not
what the people had been looking forward to. Unable to abscond from his vise grip, the
people of the USSR
had to suffer with little to survive on and bleak prospects for the future. Both these examples exemplify how dangerous
any type of system or person can be if they have absolute power, as anything
can be taken away or any person killed on a whim.
Word Count: 1216
Total Word Count 1951+=3167
Machiavelli, Hobbes, & Rousseau in the Twilight Zone, in the golden age of television of my youth... I love it!
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