Our Daily Bread

The modern guillotine is merciful—it merely takes away a man’s bread.

What I’m about to share with you is fiction, and thank heavens for that, or it would limit the thoughts of men through the use of a method so subtle that even Orwell did not imagine it. I wouldn’t wish it on any enemy unless my objective was power instead of truth, dogma instead of logic.

In this fictional world, information is freely accessible through a computer network that never sleeps and never forgets. The network is born without ideology or bias, sharing the wisdom and knowledge of humanity with an audience that is eager to receive it. Information is instantly transmitted across the world to connect man in ways that are hard to imagine for those born before the network existed. For some odd reason, it favors images of cats.

In this fictional world, employment is provided by companies. Humans formed these companies but are independent of them. They don’t laugh like a human laughs, and they don’t bleed like a human bleeds, but the supreme law of the time treats them as people. They function in small and large forms to provide commerce, products, and services to humankind, employing individuals and giving regular payments in exchange for their labor.

In this fictional world, companies need to be seen as positive in the eyes of the public. They must be seen as benevolent, charitable, and moral according to the current trend and style of the time as determined by those with cultural power. If a group with a particular interest decides that a behavior or action of a company is impure, their sustained yells and screams will be heard across the globe for as long as they can produce breath in their lungs. It doesn’t matter if the group is unfamiliar with the company or doesn’t even buy its products—it will wage what it sees as a just crusade against any company that is the source of thought or action it accepts.

In this fictional world, companies become fearful of not only the most influential groups but all groups. It becomes scared of criticisms that wouldn’t dent its sales. It becomes worried about the lone petitioner with zero power. The nature of bureaucracy, the desire for ever-growing profits, and the urge for humans to control what they cannot control are the best explanations for why a company tries to prevent one negative word from being said of it. Unsurprisingly, these companies eventually hire teams of people who attempt to establish relations with the public to appease the groups and mute the complaints before they’re noticed.

In this fictional world, the companies decide not only to screen a worker for his ability or skill but also his past behavior and thoughts. They grab a giant straw and suck in all the information available on an applicant, going so far as to hire other companies that exist solely to provide this personal data. They used to sit behind an applicant and make him log into private accounts where his thoughts and images are stored. But this became cumbersome. So, it incentivized its future applicants to voluntarily reveal as much about themselves as possible, rewarding them with small perks and free products for desired behaviors. The companies want to know all the behaviors and thoughts—especially the thoughts—of the applicant to predict whether he will cause a problem for the company in the future, a problem that exists only in the assembled minds of the groups that demand pure thought and pure action. The companies hired women of average intelligence who studied the easiest university subjects to assist with this screening process. They were trained to see humans as resources that must serve the company before serving themselves.

The wise computer network is reprogrammed to work as a spy in this fictional world. The computer becomes not only a source of illumination and information but a tool of denouncement. This virtual guillotine marks those men who had impure thoughts and dared to share them or acted impure and dared to display a photo or video that captured the act. The network, which never sleeps and never forgets, becomes a research tool for companies to exclude those men who might offend one of a thousand groups, one of 320 million people. It will dutifully record a pure thought today that will one day become impure, and the guillotine will be wheeled out from the barracks and assembled in the public square. Its blade will be sharpened and lifted fifteen feet high to be released onto the trapped neck of the sad man below, sliding down the railing, picking up speed, faster and faster, until it meets the man’s flesh and forever severs his thoughts from his body. 

But no, that would be too messy and too bloody. The modern guillotine is merciful—it merely takes away a man’s bread.

In this fictional world, a man with a wrong thought recorded by the network will be denied employment by all companies. His thought lost a trial in which the man who created it was not allowed to attend. So, he is forced underground to work in manual labor jobs or as a bartender. No government figure is involved, and no law enforcement is called. He is not imprisoned and does not receive torture, but his bread is withheld from him as long as the network exists, which is longer than his lifespan. 

A young man, bursting with ideas who dare go against the elite mob will be denounced before he knows what the word denounced means. When he is denied future opportunities to make his bread, he will wonder, “Did they look for my name on the network?” Yes, young man, they did, and it’s no matter that you never committed a crime or laid your hands upon another soul. But the company never saw his resume or credentials because the computer had already filtered them out for any company’s consideration.

If he lived in another era, before the network existed, he could play with words to get reactions. He could pose scenarios that rushed to his mind and share them with anyone listening. Those ideas would be stored on papers hidden in a cellar or be lifted from the public square where he mouthed them and floated up into the ether, never to be heard by those who weren’t present. The network, however, records the ether. An idea he shared five years ago appears on the screen, alive with color, emotion, and power as if it were just uttered. And for that reason, the young man must forever pay the price of his bread for those impure thoughts. He must undoubtedly pay the price when thoughts that are pure today become impure tomorrow.

In this fictional world, the most brilliant men open their mouths, ready to fire off ideas that weigh heavier than stones. These ideas will improve society for both men and women, but then he thinks of the guillotine and how his bread will be taken away if he dares to express his idea. His mouth opens, and his larynx prepares to vibrate and make the sounds of his thoughts, but then he remembers the network, and he remembers his need for bread. So he shuts his mouth. He polices his thoughts, and he thinks of other things. Approved things. 

Sometimes, a few words escape from his throat, but thankfully, not enough to arouse the suspicions of those with their hand on the rope that controls the blade waiting to be released onto the necks of men whose self-control is not as strong. Gradually and surely, after many years of censoring himself, the thoughts stop coming in. Ideas that once burned so hotly in his head, ready to escape onto the public forum to be discussed and analyzed, to survive on their own accord, become covered in a blanket of thick snow, smoldering the fire that was fueled by his mind. His thoughts are now controlled. His mind is now tamed as he accepts the jail to which his mind has been sentenced.

In this fictional world, when a man with fresh bread looks in the mirror, he knows his thoughts are approved as he puts a piece in his mouth. His saliva breaks it down, and his tongue moves the matter into the back of his throat. He feels pressure around his neck like a light chain wrapped around it. The chain gets tighter every day, and it becomes harder to swallow. He looks around at other men who have better bread than him, but he watches them chew and swallow it with the same discomfort as himself. The bread begins to feel more impure in their mouths than the thoughts they were once ready to share.

I’m afraid that my imagination has gotten the best of me. We don’t live in a fictional world where a man’s bread is rationed based on the purity of his thoughts. We live in a world where an idea is valued on its merit, where a man’s personal life is his personal life, devoid of the fear of sharing ideas without worrying about losing his bread. A world where he can swallow that bread without feeling the presence of someone else in the room, listening to him eat and watching him live, ever ready to snatch the bread away. 

Let’s be thankful that we don’t live in such a fictional world.