The age of indulgence

The age of indulgence

How lucky we are.

There it is, in the center of the museum. In a vacuum sealed glass dome, surrounded by a security fence. The slice of chocolate cake. The children all stand, mouths open as the robo-teacher lists the ingredients, the calorific levels and the sugar content of this one slice. They gasp in fear as they are told people long ago used to eat more than one such slice at a “sitting.” We all now know how poisonous the ancient food was. We all understand that in order to be healthy we have to eat only synthetic vegetarian, sugar and salt free products, from the governments healthy options food factory. The automated teaching system carries on feeding information into implants which fed direct into each child's brain. The full horrors of our predecessors mental instability fueled by erratic diets and a lack of official government information is explained. The teaching continues to explain how lucky the present generation are to have the constant support of the world wide socialist republic. How the WWSR has saved humanity from anarchy, how in previous generations there had been differing opinions and differing views, all competing for attention. While now they enjoy the contentment of only one set of values, one direction to go into, one leader to obey. They are so lucky to be spared the horrors of decision, the pain of having to decide what to do and who to believe. Now all is peace and tranquility, all is one uniform normality.

Up in the control room the computers quietly go about their business, monitoring each person who entered the museum, checking faces against files, establishing the right of the person to enter this state owned bastion of truth. The 3 person team of political oversight sit still, occasional checking the images on their screens, sometimes listening in to the robotic teaching to ensure all was politically correct and exactly following the great leaders edicts. These teams of political oversight always have 3 members and each is trained to see signs of rebellion, not only in the general population but also in the other members of their team. Each team reports to a second layer of political control, who in turn report to a third level. Above the third level are the party officials, those privileged with a different lifestyle because of the onerous responsibility they carry.

The museum manager, a stout lady of uncertain age, is a middle ranking party official. She has hope of rising up the levels of power within the party but is also well aware of those below her, having aspirations to replace her. The slice of chocolate cake exhibit, has been both a plus, since it had allowed her to propose educational reinforcement of the great leaders demand that all people world wide shared the same foods, but it had displayed a trace of creativity. That most deadly of sins in the WWSR vast book of wrongful thinking and rebellious attitudes. She has been wise enough to make it appear that a committee of lower level functionaries had come up with the idea and she had accepted this because of its opportunity to show how much better life was now. The cake was central to a general exhibition called the Age of Indulgence. A factual examination of just how revolting it was way back in year 2020, before WWSR and the great leader had been unanimously elected, by every single person in the whole world, to save them from the terrible existence they all had in those days. The exhibition has hologram images of the squalor and poverty in every nation of that time, it portrayed how only the twenty people of the elite had enough food. It showed how every one, other than this group, had only had food once a week, how they were kept in cages and forced to do manual labour eighteen hours a day. To emphasis how lucky we all are now, the images showed this twenty person elite as all being obese and bloated, eating meat and chocolate cake, while drunk on heady beverages. The images then are switched to the rest of the population, all caged up and eating watery soup and dressed in rags.

The museum has a special education department reserved for training the political oversight teams. This area shows how the proletariat broke out of their cages and physically stormed the palaces of the elite, it shows in graphic detail the millions of good hard working ordinary people who died while overthrowing these hated rulers. The age of indulgence was ended by this great and glorious uprising. The teaching goes on to show how the people demanded the formation of the WWSR and how they clamored for the great leader to take control and bring peace, stability and uniformity to the whole world.

Down in the basement, the deep and dark cellars under the museum, the gloss and glory of our present era is less apparent. Here the jumbled mass of stuff has been left from when the great leader declared, rightly, that the artifacts of dishonesty, those lies about people once having freedom to express themselves, the utter evil of argument and debate had to be swept aside, then buried in this dank dark dungeon so that modern truth could be displayed in the public areas. Some where down here there is even a claim that criticism of the political correctness, was actually allowed! Think of it, how could anyone ever have had such scurrilous thoughts? We are now so fortunate that such traumatic and destructive ideologues are way in the past, gone and removed from the consciousness of the young. The old, who may possibly have false memories passed to them by their grandparents; are closely monitored in these days of enlightenment. They are saved from themselves, by entering thought corrective training, if they ever do show signs of slipping from the perfect path of thinking. There are some sections of this subterranean world which are kept in order, there are a couple of vast rooms where the temperature and humidity is still controlled by the automated systems. These rooms are not covered by the cameras and watchful eyes of the political oversight teams. These rooms are only accessible by the party members, and even then the access codes are only known to those of middle rank or above. The manager is actually the only person directly associated with the museum, who can visit these rooms. To ensure she is always on the side of correctness she never visits unless at the wish of a higher official. In these rooms are hideous examples of the vast and greedy indulgence of the once ruling elite. Paintings such as the Mona Lisa, sculptures from a place called ancient Rome, which were never even known about by the people in that dark age now thankfully banished. These are artifacts once kept only for the enjoyment of those twenty self indulgent criminals from that past era. Now only party officials with their need to study this past, in order to ensure we never slip back to such decadence; may take such items and use for meaningful study, in their own residences. There is even a hideous rumor that some party officials have found recipes and menus for such destructive foods, from that horrible past, and in the interest of research, have actually eaten such things as real meat steaks, with real fried potatoes. This must be a rumor from a rebellious group and will be cleansed from our thoughts and memories at the next group, correctness and well-being, session.

The children, still guided by there all wise and trustworthy robotic teacher, file carefully and silently out of the central hall. It is now time for another group to be enlightened and empowered by seeing what vile decadence they have escaped from. These first group of children can now understand why they must never trust the words and frail memories that older people may say comes to them. They understand this is why they live in protected isolation from all false news and vile deviations from political correctness. We all now know that truth is defined as being what the party says it is, any memory of a past truth has to be erased when a new truth is announced. These children are so fortunate that this is their only way of processing thoughts and so they will never know the terror of doubt and suspicion.

I must return to my work to edit the film I have taken of this wonderful new exhibition, this much needed reminder of the horrors of the past. This editing will have to be done with great care since those higher up the chain of political command have been known to exhibit doubt as to my compliance with directives. I will set up a sub committee to share the responsibility for this film and so deflect any criticism from above, while personally accepting any credit. The museum manager must be given predominant credit as well, as she is above me in the party structure. I know that technical merit is secondary to political correctness and the content must not show any sign of creativity. That would get me demoted and even blaming a committee of underlings would not help. Creativity is the enemy of uniformity and under the great leader, uniformity is the very essence of universal political correct thinking. I have to keep so very secret the hidden discs of old films that were passed to me by my great grandfather before they erased his memories. These discs can only be played on very old machines, the modern ones which are designed and made to only show what the WWSR put out will not work them. This is why I volunteer for any and all projects at the museum. The deep dark cellars have a very old machine. My tiny spark of defiance is just about alive.