Mack Reynolds: Earth Unaware

Helen said from the side of her mouth, “What’s he wearing, a suit made out of burlap bags?” Ed pretended not to hear.

“…all parties, without exception, in so far as they seek for power, are varieties of absolutism.”

Helen caught that phrase and sang out, “Even the Communist Party?”

Tubber—Ed Wonder assumed this must be Ezekiel Joshua Tubber—paused in mid-thought and looked down at her gently. “Especially the communists, dear one. Communism fails to recognize that, though man is a social being and seeks equality, he also loves independence. Property, in fact, springs from man’s desire to free himself from the slavery of communism, the primitive form of society. But property, in its turn, goes to the extreme and violates equality and supports the acquisition of power by the privileged minority.”

Whether or not that satisfied Helen Fontaine, Ed didn’t know, but he was beginning to wonder what all this had to do with religion.

He whispered to Helen, “Whatever he is, he isn’t a red. Let’s go.”

“No, wait a minute. I want to hear more of what the old goat has to say. How did a skinny old duffer like him ever get to be father of that pretty, plump little girl out front? He looks like he’s eighty if he’s a day.”

Somebody back in the audience went shhhh again and somebody else said, “Please, dear one, we cannot hear the Speaker of the Word.”

Helen didn’t bother to turn this time, but for the moment held her peace, to Ed’s relief. He was beginning to be able to picture being thrown out of the assembly bodily, and if there were anything Ed Wonder hated, it was violence, particularly when it was directed at him. He brought his attention back to Tubber who seemed to be getting into the meat of his subject. “So it is that we proclaim the road to Elysium must be taken. Such has become our lust for possessions, our mad, desperate scramble for goods, for property, for material things, that we are making of this promised land granted by the All-Mother to our ancestors a veritable desert. The nation has already lost a third of the rich topsoil that it had when the Pilgrims landed. Consumption of oil has tripled since the end of the Second War, and although we possess but a seventh of the earth’s proved resources, in our madness we are consuming more than half of the world’s production. Once the world’s leading exporter of copper, we are now the leading importer, and our once tremendous reserves of lead and zinc are now so depleted that they are rapidly becoming uneconomic to work.

“But still the waste goes on. Still the demand for more and more consumption. Consume! Consume! they demand of us. Seek happiness in the desire for things. Consume! Consume! they tell us and endless millions are spent on the perverters of Madison Avenue so that our people will continue to demand, demand more things they need not. Why, dear ones, do you know that in this mad attempt to lure us into still greater consumption those who profit by this way of life spend five hundred dollars a year in packaging alone for every family in the nation. Five hundred dollars a year into what is largely waste! Why, dear ones, our brothers in such lands as India have a per capita income of but thirty-six dollars a year.”

He was, Ed Wonder decided, really beginning to get steamed up now. However, it still didn’t have much to do with religion. Other than an occasional reference to the All-Mother , whoever that was, and Tubber’s habit of calling his audience dear ones it sounded more like an attack on the affluent society than a quest for salvation.

Ed looked at Helen from the side of his eyes. He had an idea that the fineness was beginning to wear off her mischievous nature and she’d soon be bored with the tent meeting. He had an idea, too, that she was assimilating only every other sentence or so of Tubber’s diatribe, in spite of her scowl of concentration.

“…frivolous consumption. Why, we spend more for greeting cards than medical research. More on smoke, gambling and drinking than on education. More on watches and jewelry than on either basic scientific research or books…”

Ed began to whisper, “Look, this guy isn’t a subversive. Just a chronic malcontent. What do you say we take off?”

But Helen wasn’t having any. Her voice came clear and loud. “What are you moaning about, Dads? America has the greatest standard of living in the world. Nobody ever had it so good.”

Silence fell.

Not even the shushers to their rear broke the hush.

Somehow, the gentle-faced, sad-faced oldster who had been holding forth in a quiet persuasive voice in spite of the nature of his attack, seemed to grow several inches in height, put on twenty or more pounds in pure bulk. For a moment, inanely, Ed wondered if the wobbly speaker’s stand would hold this added weight.

He whispered to Helen, “Did you say Abe Lincoln? He looks more like John Brown about to free the slaves at Harper’s Ferry.”

Helen began to say something, but her voice was drowned in the rumble of thunder from Ezekiel Joshua Tubber.

“Standards of living, thou sayest! Is it standard of living that we must have a new vehicle every two or three years, whilst the old is discarded? Is it standard of living that a woman must needs own half a dozen bathing suits or think she is underprivileged? Is it standard of living that appliances are so constructed—planned obsolescence they call it—that it is all but impossible to get them home from the store before collapse? Indeed, we of the United States have used up in the past forty years more of the world’s resources than all the population of earth has used in all of recorded history up until 1914, in this false pursuit of living standards. Dear one, it is madness. The road to Elysium must be taken!”

Ed Wonder was shaking her arm, but Helen was not to be stopped. “Don’t call me dear one , Dads. Just because you have to live in a tent and wear gunny sacks doesn’t mean the rest of us want to.”

Ezekiel Joshua Tubber grew another six inches taller. “Thou hast failed to hear the word, O woman of vanity. Have I not said that the gifts of the All-Mother are being frivolously wasted in the name of thy vanities? Look thou at thyself. At thy dress, which thou wilt wear but half a dozen times before discarding for new fashion, new style. Look at thy shoes, so fragile as to need the cobbler’s care after but a few wearings. Look at thy visage, touched with multiple paints at fabulous cost, and always at the expense of wasting the gifts of the All-Mother. Did I not saith earlier that our copper is all but gone? Still every year women throw away hundreds of millions of brass lipstick holders, and brass is made largely of copper. Take up the path to Elysium, O woman of vanity!”

“Listen, Helen…” Ed Wonder was tugging unhappily at her.

But Helen was into it now. On her feet, she laughed at the enraged prophet.

“Maybe that daughter of yours, out front, would be enjoying herself on a date instead of hanging around a tent meeting, if she used a little makeup herself, Dads. And you can sound off the rest of the night about this path to the all-mother, or whatever, but you’re not going to talk me, or anybody else with good sense, out of looking my smartest. The number of style conscious people is growing, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Listen, let’s get out of here,” Ed pleaded. He was on his feet too, tugging her toward the aisle that led to the entrance. Once more, inanely, he wondered how the rickety wooden stand upon which Ezekiel Joshua Tubber stood could hold the swollen fury of the man. Even as he tugged, he wondered at the stricken faces of the small audience.

Only for a moment did Tubber hold his breath, then the voice came in a roar that would have silenced Götterdämmerung.