All for Naught: The Rise and Fall of President Barry Blue: Two Novellas by M. E. Sharpe

Author:M. E. Sharpe [Sharpe, M. E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Popular Culture, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781315487274
Google: EHSTDAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 30852411
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

The Cure

The problems with Richard propelled Maria into the realm of fantasy, not unusual for a writer of fiction. Her problems merged with the problems of the world and she began to fantasize about a pill, yes, a wonderful pill that would solve the problems of the world, hers included. Let’s say that this pill would alter the chemistry in the brain and suppress the urge to act pathologically, against the interests of others. Or suppress the action of the aggressive genes, or result in some wonderful process that would cause everyone to act altruistically. She wasn’t writing as a physiologist but as a fantasist. But, she told herself, if there are biochemical differences in the brains of altruists and psychopaths, why can’t the brain biochemistry of the psychopaths be altered for the good? No. Too far-fetched. The reading public would laugh in her face if the story got so far as being published. No publisher in his right mind would publish such a story.

It happens that Maria Melmont and Naomi Stevens were on friendly terms and spoke on the phone occasionally. Naomi Stevens, you remember, was the manager of a magazine directed to wealthy upper-class readers interested in travel, fashion, art, and elegance in all aspects of life. In addition to articles on these subjects, the magazine carried opinion pieces by highly regarded authors on social issues. This relatively new magazine was modeled on a relatively new Russian magazine called Snob, designed to be read by wealthy Russians who were also interested in travel, fashion, art, and elegance, the soigné Russians. Snob is the same word in Russian as in English, a word used as a wink to the cognoscenti. English, of course, is much more widely spoken around the world than Russian. The publishers of the English-language magazine expected to do much better than Snob. As another wink to the congnoscenti, they called their magazine Slob, confident that the upper-class English-language readers would appreciate the inversion.

Getting back to Maria Melmont’s idea for a story, she mentioned it to Naomi Stevens, who, to Maria’s surprise, not only thought the idea a good subject for a story, but promised to urge the editors of Slob to publish it. It happened that Naomi had come across an article about brain research in which the researchers were investigating the possibility of developing a “morality pill” just as Maria was fantasizing. So the idea wasn’t far-fetched after all.

Maria sat down in front of her computer and opened a Word document.

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