I should be writing my dissertation but an idea for this little story popped into my head so I thought I'd type it up before I forgot it...its a bit scaff and unfinished...part of my dissertation is on Thomas Hobbes's political philosophy,one of the things he says is that a ruler's power depends ultimately on the people's opinion of him...from that wee thought this story grew
Once upon a time, in a place not far from here, there was a very proud king who ruled over his Kingdom with the greatest pride. Like many kings before him – and no doubt many kings since – he wanted to ensure with the utmost certainty that his power would never diminish. Now the king was wise but because of his selfishness his wisdom turned to foolishness; like one bad apple spreading rot to a whole barrel full. He brought into his court a philosopher, a scientist and a poet to ask them this question:
‘What must I do to ensure that I stay strong and powerful, ruling supremely and irrevocably over my kingdom?’
The answer that he saw as most correct according to his wisdom came from a small, twittering poet who proclaimed:
‘Power’s twin is man’s opinion
Win men’s favour and keep dominion.’
‘Yes!’ exclaimed the ruler, ‘My power depends on the people’s opinion. I need the people to like me first before they will revere and obey me…now then how to I win their favour?’
At this point a philosopher spoke up: ‘All men seek happiness, whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end.’
‘Happiness’ said the ruler, ‘yes! The chief end of man is happiness. All men are driven in pursuit of it. But how do I satisfy the happiness of my whole kingdom?’
At this point the scientist spoke up: ‘er well…we..we at the labs have been working on, well have almost certainly completed the engineering of a pill, a drug, a simple powder that when ingested produces the highest outpouring of euphoria known to man, and depending on the dosage, this eh intense happiness can be sustained for hours and hours.’
‘Go on,’ ordered the king
‘Well the powder completely dissolves in water..so..so if added to the city’s water system…which supplies every house-hold in the kingdom…then each citizen will unknowingly be consuming their way to happiness. You will have a society which is full of perfectly content and happy inhabitants.’
‘That’s it!’ said the king. His eyes narrowing and darting from side to side as his mind processed the out-workings of this ingenious plan. ‘Without unhappiness there can be no uprising! Discontent is the fuel of revolution…but with unlimited, controlled and sustained happiness who can challenge me! Who can challenge ME! I am the great unconquerable king whom by his wisdom and deft schemes will have the masses obey him!’
so i am against long blog posts so i'm not going to finish it here but the ending (if i ever write it)will go something like this. The plan works perfectly and induced happiness seeps throughout the city to great effect. Yet not long after the king (who has made sure his water stays pure) receives an ultimatum from a neighboring kingdom, declaring war...the king tries to mobilize his armies and get the people prepared for war...but why would they fight when they are in a perpetual state of happiness?
