A Happy Society

An exorbitantly wealthy scientist once wished to create a perfectly happy society. Genetic engineering would be its key. The first batch of people all died during infancy. The tolerance levels for the poisons that their brains had been programmed to release with negative emotions were simply too low. As soon as an infant began to cry, it would die. After the sixth batch or so, the strategy was perfected. Sadness, anger, and other “negative” emotions would cause severe pain or even death. The scientist created a perfectly happy society.

Every year there are inevitably a few dozen deaths, mostly children and adolescents. If a person can make it twenty years or so without slipping into a fetal depression, they tend to keep the healthy habit of happiness up for life. Those who are not so brave, or so cowardly, die a slow and painful death. Poison secreted from their brains creeps down the veins in their arms and back, chilling the tips of their fingers and toes. They die a lonely death, clenching groin and buttocks. A tear-stained corpse will be found shortly after on a hard street or a soft bed.

Only one murder has been committed since emotional conformity was actualized. The science was killed in cold blood. Nobody stopped the murderer, there were no police because there was no crime. Some expected the assassin to die there next to its maker, but the assassin simply walked away. Apparently the perpetrator not of a crime of passion, but one of simple necessity.

Two generations after the assassination the trait still persists, a cursed cancer of the heart. One can only hope that their descendants will be truly happy.

The Jovial

There is a great city far far away. The people there are very happy and very prosperous. The city is filled with large beautiful structures and parks. Elegant works of art and long dancing arcs look down upon the streets below. All of the carriages float above the ground as if by magic. There are fine restaurants and magnificent plays. Performers gather around the city market places. Little children eat ice cream scream with delight and the amorous play indoors under fine silks.

But there is a price. Deep underground, far from the sunlight and the sounds of sex and laughter, there is a child who wiggles and screams all through the day and all through the night. These are no fits of delight.

It is the great machine, that fine invention which so many years ago saved an entire civilization from certain doom. It is indeed the engine of utopia. It comes at a price, this is true, but a small price to pay to allow countless lives to thrive. What is the chronic torture of a single soul when weighed against the infinite prosperity in complete health and thorough satisfaction of entire people. When any people are faced with such a choice, the great machine is the sole solution, the universal panacea. 

Is it worth it, you ask? The suffering of one for the benefit of all. Is not the answer an obvious one?