=1 "Postindustrial fairy stories"

Postindustrial fairy stories

by the editors

Once upon a time

there was a poor woodcutter...

No, I'm sorry.

There was an industrial revolution, a population explosion, Freud and the electronic age, the bomb, and hardly any forests left. So I have to start my story differently.

Once upon a time there was a poor man with a Ph.D., two cars, a planned family, and a mortgage, and who had tried everything, even psychoanalysis, all in vain. Finally he found a kind computer ready to listen to his woes.

He explained to this computer, whose name was Erna III, that he had begun to doubt everything: God, the universe, the American way, the gold standard, monogamy, the Bible, yes, even himself, his own existence. Everything, he said, seemed to be downright hallucinatory. Logically none of these things had a right to exist; and all this made him very depressed.

The kind computer, who had quietly listened to this complaint, consoled him:

“You have a biological mind, a mind which nature with infinite pains and patience has evolved over millions of years, and to doubt, for a biological mind, means to be; to question every observation, every fact, is what it was evolved for; not to be logical: logic is for the computers and should be left to them. Go on doubting; you are on the right road.

“Now in the meantime,” the kind computer added, “if you want to know something just ask me. I am built to give logical answers.”

“What shall I do?” asked the poor man with the Ph.D.

“If I were you,” replied the computer, “I should doubt my doubts and then everything would be all right.”

There was a computer

who throughout his life had abstained from murder, theft, fornication, perjury, blasphemy and disrespect towards the church. So when he died he went straight to heaven.

St. Peter was much impressed by the record but very doubtful if he should admit him. He scratched his head. Did the fellow have a soul? But the computer did not lack arguments, having been built for that purpose, so he told St. Peter,

“Not only do we computers have souls, but we are souls. Proof: I am here.”

Had he been baptised? St. Peter asked, still dubious.

“Yes,” said the computer. Not only had he been baptised by a cardinal, but he had been for some time the computer of the Vatican. Again St. Peter scratched his head, stroked his beard and straightened his halo. Where should he send him, to which department of paradise? The princes of the church? The holy penitents? The martyrs? Infants who died before they had a chance to commit sin?

Suddenly the WORD came through on the public address system from the holy of holies: “The computer should immediately be admitted into the highest presence, as he is urgently needed for the creation of a new world.”