elimination

I sit in Bump Nose’s little group pleasantly absorbed in my reading. It’s fascinating to say the least. The text book talks about how there were “races” once upon a time, some superior to others. It says there were different traits expressed in human populations over time due to the relative reproductive isolation of people in certain geological regions. This created genetic advantages among the various racial groups. Herbert Spencer applied Darwin’s theory of natural selection and view of nature as a struggle for survival amongst inevitably stronger and weaker organisms to the human social structure. Thus the prosperity of the upper classes compared to the insufficient achievement of the lower classes was justified as was the imperial conquest of lesser peoples particularly on the continent of Africa. Due to the failure of the African tribes to create a society analogous to that of the superior Europeans and create adequate technology to defend themselves, the conquest of their resources was entirely justified.

Each of the imperialist powers, notably Germany, England and France, believed that their race was superior and therefore it was their “white man’s burden” to go forth and civilize the less advanced racial groups. Said civilizing came in the form of liberating their land and resources for uses that were more economically efficient. Any death of the native peoples was justified in the context of “the greater purpose.”

The imperialist powers reaped economic benefits through expanding their markets and obtaining raw materials for further industrialization. The colonies provided a solution to Europe’s growing population and brought glory to the state. The Europeans brought the inferior races modern technology, such as advanced medical practices, essentially civilizing them. I accidentally brush a finger over the scroll button on my tablet and to my utter annoyance end up on a different page. I attempt to scroll back, yet find after a minute that I am nowhere near the page where I began. I put my finger on the button in the top right of my screen to find that I am 100 pages into my 346 page reading! Usually we only get about 50 pages! I scroll over the rest expecting something novel, or some egregious example of human weakness they wish to endlessly embellish. Yet to my utter shock they don’t have the word weakness in there once. I blink.

12 clears her throat in order to get Bump Nose’s attention and begins to speak. “I was wondering, what were some of the specific alleles that distinguished the Europeans as the superior race?” Bump Nose looks up with the slightest smile before sliding into his trademark “I’m about to start a big long lecture, cover your bleeding ears and defenestrate yourselves at once” grin. He closes his tablet and sits back with a sigh placing his pristine black boots on the very edge of his equally pristine desk.

“What children, truly defines superiority? 700 years ago in the 1800s the collective work of Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer and several political tacticians of the day brought forth a justification for imperialism and class distinction to the world. The poor worker and the ignorant savage were to be exploited on the grounds that they were inferior enough to allow themselves to be exploited.

A struggle for survival amongst organisms with superior and inferior attributes has been observed among other species, would it be that illogical to apply it to our own species as well? Can the notion of a superior race be justified by the processes of natural selection?” We stare at Bump Nose blankly. Is he actually agreeing with the textbook? Perhaps not entirely because he referenced “exploitation” in contrast to the “civilizing mission” and “glory” we learned about. He stares at us for a moment, perhaps toying with the notion that we might respond before launching back into his speech.

“In the 20th and 21st century these views were altered dramatically. To suggest that any ethnicity was superior to any other became the utmost exaltation of societal taboo. The innate xenophobia that had in different variations and degrees transcended perhaps all human civilizations was erased—at least in polite society—with severe vindication. The phenomena of a politically correct society began to emerge in the overdeveloped countries. Were they wrong to claim supreme equality amongst all people?” Again I regard Bump Nose blankly while subtly rolling my lower lip between my incisors. 14 breaks the silence. “Well they can’t both be right?”

At this Bump Nose’s smile grows exponentially. 12 interjects. “They aren’t both wrong either.” They turn to Bump Nose expectantly, his purse-lipped smile grows. I speak slowly, drawing in the eyes of the room. “If the conjectures 12 and 14 have just made hold true one can assume that both views you presented are neither entirely right nor entirely wrong. It’s a spectrum. There is no right or wrong.” At this I lock eyes with Bump Nose, darling him to say something, yet his devious smirk only spreads further in the direction of his maniacally glinting eyes.

He lays his arms on the table and pulls in closer to his desk preparing to carve out careful words with sharply pointed tongue. “It’s a rare treat to hear such simple words spit with such severity, I wonder Seven can you tell me what conjures that degree of negative emotion in human conversation?” I say nothing. “Fear, Seven. And do you know what it is that people fear most? People fear that which they do not understand. This is why we must continue on our path towards understanding.” His eyes lock into mine refusing to let my gaze drop, finally I nod and he relinquishes command of my eyeballs.

“From the end of the 21st century onward, these views and the underlying issue were finally observed with an objective eye. A truly scientific interpretation emerged. Both the racist views and the egalitarian politically correct views were finally dismissed. Superiority exists undoubtedly, yet in comes in the form of individual alleles, or isolated traits. Racial superiority has been observed in certain traits among certain ethnicities without a doubt. Yet with every advantage possessed by one group is an equal disadvantage. Therefore it was determined that the races were indeed equal, all people were indeed equal, but not in all things.

Thus the predicament presented itself: the races were to be redistributed, the good traits were to be artificially selected and the bad were to be lost forever, buried with the remaining scourge of human mediocrity. In other words, to create the superior race, all races were eliminated through selective combination of beneficial traits. With this the Genomic Principle of Meritocracy was born. Said principle is the foundation of the modern world as you know it.” 12′s hand shoots up, but she does not wait to be recognized and instead immediately begins speaking/rambling. “So the modern population, we, or us, the “superior race,” is simply a combination of all the most beneficial traits from all humans.”

Bump Nose clears his throat. “To greatly oversimplify it, yes, you are correct.” 12 nods quickly before resuming her rapid fire word bombardment. “How, under what circumstances did this happen? Who, when, created this?” 12 attempts to awkwardly chain together more interrogatives, but Bump Nose stops her. “That is a extremely complicated series of questions to be answered within good time.” 12 nods and looks back down at her tablet. A question continues to nag at me. He probably won’t answer it, yet at this point I believe I have little to fear from overbearing inquiries. “Why is it that the “she” you speak of, who writes our textbooks chose to exalt imperialism so much?” Bump Nose looks taken aback for a moment upon hearing the word “she” and it occurs to me that perhaps he hadn’t meant to let that slip.

He clasps his hands together and nods pensively. “Interesting question.” His body language has changed. He sits as though he would like to take up as little space as humanly possible. I wonder for a moment does Bump Nose really know what he is doing? Does he have a plan or a goal or anything? I break from my musings to realize that I have been hitting Bump Nose with my full 1000 megawatt death stare. I clear my throat, pressing onward against his discomfort. “We have been taught that authors write to inform, to entertain, to express an opinion or to persuade...” I wrinkle my nose. “One would assume that a textbook would be written to inform.”

“One would assume.” Bump Nose repeats. His words are on some confused island halfway between a question and a statement. There is something new in his eyes, fear perhaps. A small smirk makes its way across the right side of my mouth. This is what he gets for attempting to call me out about the whole ‘right and wrong’ thing. I will slice through his defenses with my words and carve out the answers I seek. “The author was informing us about the glory and righteousness of imperialism due to racial superiority. You have now proceeded to make a logical claim that the views presented in the textbook are incorrect.” Bump Nose says nothing, having set his facial features on do not disturb mode. Anger rises inside me, but somehow I contain it as I continue to asses the situation analytically.

“If someone is presenting an incorrect claim, or perhaps rather a subjective claim, then we must assume that the purpose is not to inform, but to persuade.” Bump Nose’s eyes begin to widen as I feel him preparing to interject, but I refuse to stop for breath. “The ‘she’ you speak of is trying to persuade us that there is glory and justice in imperialism. This is only useful in the context that we will be doing something of the sort— it’s because Level Three is imperialism, we are being sent to take the other continent!! And that’s why we have Practical Training, or at least what we are doing right now with the dehumanization. ‘She’ wants us to go in there as killing machines, carry out our orders and...” BZZZZZZZZZZZ