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Bezig met laden... The Marching Morons and Other Famous Science Fiction Stories (1951)door C. M. Kornbluth
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 Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek.  JalenV | Apr 13, 2024 |    ) DinadansFriend | Sep 21, 2022 | Influential book for understanding the genre but not an enjoyable read. (  ) mmyoung | Nov 27, 2014 | geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
Fiction.
Science Fiction.
HTML: Published more than 60 years ago, this dark and prescient story of a future devolved to idiocy remains one of the most frightening visions to have emerged from the science fiction of that decade. Envisioning a future United States overwhelmed by a citizenry of low IQ (a consequence of the overbreeding of the stupid) Kornbluth was in fact writing of an observed present. The steady, inexorable descent of human intelligence obsessed Kornbluth, was one of his major themes and reached its truest statement in this novelette. The secret masters of Kornbluth's future are a small population of the intelligent who in subterranean fashion run the country but the "marching morons" overwhelm them and they summon a cynical entrepreneur from the past to help them deal with the dilemma. Weak on technology (a time machine is employed scoop the entrepreneur into their present) the novelette is deadly accurate in its portrait of a society sunk in stupid television, ornate, worthless automobiles and catchphrases which substitute for thought. The denouement is absolutely uncompromising and its utter bleakness is refractory not of a speculative future (which it may well be) but a present which Kornbluth found omnipresent and unbearable. In terms of social statement and extrapolation THE MARCHING MORONS stands with Orwell's 1984 or Forster's THE MACHINE STOPS as shattering anatomization of an inevitable future. .Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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 Google Books — Bezig met laden...GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde: (3.44)
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This is a similar dystopian future Earth to the one in 'The Little Black Bag'. Instead of a doctor's bag from the future arriving in the present, a 20th century real estate developer named 'Honest' John Barlow is awakened from accidental suspended animation in the future.
The 3 million brilliant humans are vastly outnumbered by 5 billion humans with an average IQ of 45, which means they are moderately mentally disabled. They keep breeding and breeding, and the so-called brilliant humans haven't figured out mass birth control that doesn't require the stupid to do anything. The smarties hope that John Barlow can help them with the population problem.
John Barlow does. As he demands, he becomes World Dictator. The problem is solved and John Barlow has his reward.
There are some bits demonstrating what entertains the stupid masses that were interesting. The intelligent people are not all white, which is nice -- although it gives us an opportunity to see that Barlow is a bigot. Probably the nicest thing one may say about Barlow is that he seems genuinely sorry to have outlived his second wife, Verna.
Notes: Marshall Field's was a department store in Chicago from 1852 until it, and its other stores, were taken over by Macy's in 2006. As for Jack Ketch, he was an infamous 17th century English executioner known for botching his work. (