Level 7

APRIL 7

An extraordinary thing happened in the lounge today. Usually people there form small groups of two or three, talking quietly with each other, and often hardly speaking at all. This time the picture was different. One man—I was told later that he was a philosopher, Ph-107—was standing and talking, vigorously and persuasively, while all the rest listened in silence, sitting or standing around.

The scene was most unusual. Not only had I never observed it on Level 7 before, but I do not remember coming across informal public speech-making like this up above either. It was like a return to the old oratory. In ancient city-states people must have talked, and listened, in that way.

Strange as it may seem, the subject of the man’s speech was Democracy—Democracy on Level 7, to be precise.

The topic seemed to fascinate his audience. Even P-867, who likes talking herself, was absorbed and hardly noticed me. Other people drifted into the room from time to time while the philosopher was speaking, and all their conversations died as they were drawn into the rapt circle of listeners.

Ph-107’s thesis went something like this.

Democracy, he said, is the rule of all over all. To make it practicable, however, men have always found it necessary to compromise: to follow the decisions of the majority. And as the actual ruling power must perforce be in the hands of a very few people chosen as the representatives of the majority, it has been possible for some cynics to maintain that real democracy can never work. It is always an élite which rules.

To forestall such objections, people have tried to limit the power of the élite by devising impersonal machinery of government such as laws, constitutions, principles. The rule of law, as opposed to the rule of people, has been the basis of democracy from time immemorial.

All right, the cynic will reply, but the rule of laws and constitutions and so forth remains, ultimately, the rule of some people—the people who devised them, in this or past ages. Principles cannot invent themselves. And when all the rules have been laid down they still have to be applied and interpreted by lawyers, judges, politicians—by people.

These objections, said Ph-107, cannot be disregarded. They have formed a valid criticism of every form of democracy which has existed—until today. Now, for the first time in the history of mankind, perfect, absolute democracy is coming into being: democracy on Level 7.

As we gathered yesterday from the talk about communications, there is no personal authority here. One does not have to salute anybody. “We obey only impersonal commands,” Ph-107 cried with enthusiasm, thumping one fist into the palm of his other hand. “We acknowledge only the authority of the loudspeaker—the impersonal, the supra-personal personification of all of us.

“This is,” he wound up, “the ultimate logical form for democracy to take: purged of personal elements, refined until the quintessence, the very abstraction, is all that remains. Democracy on Level 7 is the only true democracy, not only in the world today, but in the whole of human history.”

For a few moments after he had finished there was silence: “Surely somebody must be sitting at the other end of the loudspeaker and giving the orders?”

Ph-107’s answer was startling: “What proof have you of that? Perhaps it’s only a tape! And even if it’s a living person it doesn’t matter, for he’s completely anonymous and so represents us all. Think of folk art and folk songs: at some time somebody must have created them, but their anonymity makes them both the expression and the possession of the people.”

At this he smiled triumphantly, and then added: “Any more questions?”

It seemed that somebody—it was a woman this time—was not altogether happy about his reasoning. “Do you imply,” she asked, “that the rule of the loudspeaker, just because it’s impersonal, must therefore be the rule of the majority and not of an élite?”

“Not merely of the majority,” came the philosopher’s ready reply. “It is the rule of all. Don’t we all, implicitly or explicitly, agree with each command we receive? Isn’t each order the most sensible one which could be given, in the present circumstances? Anyone can, if he tries, find the good reason behind every instruction. And when you’ve discovered the reason, you must agree that the loudspeaker has given the very order which you yourself would have given if the decision had been yours.” He smiled sweetly at the woman who had asked the question, and then around at his circle of listeners. “Is there anybody here who can give me one single example of a command with which he or she disagrees?”

“The command to go down to Level 7,” I felt like saying. But I realised that this order was given before we got here, and so did not qualify—not that the argument would have served any useful purpose anyway.

So, ‘in the present circumstances’, I said nothing.

The speaker seemed to have carried his point, for nobody had any more objections or questions for him to answer before the loudspeaker announced that our time in the lounge was up; whereupon, of our own free will, and therefore democratically, we left. Ph-107 alone stayed behind in the room—apparently to repeat his speech to the next lot of people. I thought that, in the present circumstances, this would be most salutary. And of course the loudspeaker must have agreed with me and given the appropriate instructions to Ph-107.