Christopher WunderLee - Moore's Mythopoeia

Thus began the age of correction, i.e. cui bono anum , a rather callous, and gifted, meaning we were suddenly capable of bearing the gift of good fortune, inurbane epoch (confusing as it may be, we are intent on suggesting both meanings). Now that they had defeated the enemy of the outside (epidermically speaking, of course), humanity turned into itself, an extremely invultuationary act if you believe in the self-serving paizogony of the entire race, to cleanse the demons that diseased the physically healthy, always considered a witchcraft sort of symptom of pantophobia brought on by the adumrations of a few seers of the new hell. Psychology and psychiatry, the greatest of humanity’s inventions, were given a new goal, a new purpose. At all costs, there must be harmony. The drug companies were their able assistants, producing brand new mood enhancers, manner purifiers, temperament equalizers, emotion stabilizers, anger managers, and peace inducers.

The field of genetic research was given large sums of funding to pinpoint the psychology of DNA and in a few years, Dr. Johan Wassermanning and his team, managed to figure out what microscopic genomes could be tweaked to bring about mental health. Children were screened while in the womb, their psychological future mapped like the plot of a novel and enhanced to ensure there was no conflicts, no problems, no instabilities. But some, unforeseen difficulties were expected, this was simply realistic and the development of mental assistance drugs became a multi-billion digit industry (rivaling only distraction in sheer revenue). With a little help from a pill, all humanity would be right (since left has been so yellow journalistically associated with communism and insurrection, and popular novels have depicted the dear Ramanov’s final hours so horrisonantly, the actual movement of turning towards the port side of the body was almost banned from usage, had it not been for a quick consubstantial essay by one and only Sigmund Moore, who contruded the entire directional controversy into a case of mass-malnoia). Government mandates (one should not assume outright that these were Metternichian) made it illegal not to have children screened, plotted, diagnosed and finally, cured. All humanity was medicated for its own benefit (a sort of forced Pearsonian system); there was harmony (in both the lypophrenic attitudes of mentality and the cacodaemon of health, as well as freedom to choose ones route on the compass).

Furthermore (we use this as a device, not as linguistic direction), for the sake of the goodwill of all, genetics enabled scientific classification of social taxonomy to be determined without prejudice, and as with all perfect cultural structures, a true pyramid of worth was constructed, with a place for every citizen, and their pets. Dubbed Vision 2020 by some very Hellerian bureaucrats (who did not obviously miss the irony), which reflected the program’s presupposed foresight as well as its deadline, witchcraft in uteri assisted in the continuation of the List, as embryos were genetically maneuvered to seek only those parallel to them on the scale. Thus, a C-list girl would not seek an A-list boy, fixing, as it were, the millennia of heartache that natural selection had tyrannically forced upon humanity, but would be quite content with a very friendly C-lister that would compliment her own capabilities (i.e. the alpha male no longer need bother with beta feelings being plundered, they would not seek him out, rather they would be quite busy chasing a beta male of their very own). This was the most humane, if not most realistic, human sexuality had ever been.

And to further the justice of the system, each and every citizen, regardless of rank, was guaranteed 15 minutes a fame at least once in his or her life, guaranteed. That meant the lowliest D-lister would, at some point, achieve the notoriety and status of an A-list citizen, even for just a brief while, become known, famous, that all-important designation that represents the true commodity of a just society.

The age of correction was a golden era (the association being a purely metaphorical allusion to economic abundance and not, shall we say, any sort of claim to Morian republics), for after the mind and body were clean, so was society (i.e. the collective prejudices of the majority equaling morality [in a rather insipid, yet definitive, Turgotian meaning]). Criminal activity sharply dropped every year, until it did not exist any longer, perhaps the only subjective extinction catalogued in the fossil record from which we garner our so-called truths. The last murder had occurred sixty years before Joseph was born (this being the infamous Claude Bonn Wexler case, in which the accused was prosecuted for drowning his dear wife of eighteen years in a rather circumspect and over-sized bowl of porridge — providing the sweet Fanny Adams term, finally, with an exact definition), the last rape in recorded history was eighteen years, four months, and ten days, before Joseph’s father was conceived (the alleyway in which the young maiden was so violently deflowered is now a museum of abnormal [… adviseth a striving toward a straiter resemblance to the Average Man than he hath to himself. Whoso attaineth thereto shall have peace, the prospect of death and the hope of Hell ] social behavior that rivals amusement parks in its annual draw). There had not been a robbery or burglary in over a century (meaning, of course, monetary larceny). Even fistfights were only myths, strange competitions read with confusion in storybooks and universally dubbed pugilistic jousts, a hybrid linguistic trick to further widen the actual events under inspection from the language used to describe them. There was no violence in sports, on screen, in music.

As a reflection of the culture, the Arts became great lauds to the wonderful achievements of a civilization that had conquered evil (that subjective moniker given to anything out of place and/or different than the norm). Comedies were the fashionable subjects of all movies, novels, and plays (however, this must be qualified and we hereby assert that for most of these productions, the laughometer never quivered measurably). Love was the primary subject of music and ballads the most popular form (if it can be believed that six men sitting in a conference room are capable of expressing this most mysterious of emotions). All music celebrated the institution of marriage, the sole fountain of contentment between the sexes. All was well.

Illegal drugs, once the scourge of urban centers, slowly disappeared from city streets. Dealers could find no one to buy their products, there was no need to feel different, to escape reality, for reality was now a utopia (induced, of course, from the narrowly different prescriptions doled out by institutionally recognized peddlers who took over street corners not with a violent, criminal coup, but with marketing campaigns and brand management schemes).

Starvation and homelessness also receded into the textiles of existence; new molecular technologies could produce food from atomic building blocks in an instant and possibilities for even the most reclusive person were abundant (we will not say here, due to the requisitions of powerful influences, that the specialized social, Emersonian colonies constructed near babbling brooks and pseudo-farming communities, out of the way, as it were, did not do their part). There was plenty of food for everyone. And, as mental instability was eradicated, so was the isolationism and madness of the bag lady, the hobo, and the bum. There was work for everyone to do, higher education was mandatory for all citizens, and a place in society as a well-adjusted consumer was guaranteed.

The only brief, yet significant, stumble in this riot of true progress was quickly quashed shortly before it arose by linguistic provisions writ into public laws. For juveniles, ever the delinquents of society’s promise, had mistakenly allowed errors in grammatical judgment to become so prevalent, they almost began to eclipse the very language required to do business. At first, it was subtle… a few errant clauses mingling with perfectly expressed complete sentences between teenagers. But then, the immensely popular pop-artist Delay Bovino picked up on the fad and turned it into an outright phenomenon. Before long, youngsters were linguistically so different from their elders, the two subcultures could not converse, so confusing was this new idiom. Experts called it headlinese, after its declarative, unpunctuated, immediate diction, and highly personalized use of contractions and abbreviations. “GF can aid concerns.” “Pep got no future.” “Fat to give up keys.” “Eating changes as Sim seeks ca-ching.” “Biz tempts new face.” “Refs attempt revival of old speak.” And so on… to the point that many of the Headlines, as they were called, could not converse with one another either, and regional dialects compounded the disconnect.