Introduction
You would be forgiven for thinking that our politicians today seem more sympathetic towards criminals than they do towards the sick and unemployed. In Erewhon, Samuel Butler’s dystopian Utopia, this had been enshrined as policy — which involved the Erewhonians in some ingenious evasions in order to avoid prosecution for a cold.
Hence all the ordinary greetings among ourselves, such as, How do you do? and the like, are considered signs of gross ill-breeding; nor do the politer classes tolerate even such a common complimentary remark as telling a man that he is looking well. They salute each other with, “I hope you are good this morning;” or “I hope you have recovered from the snappishness from which you were suffering when I last saw you;” and if the person saluted has not been good, or is still snappish, he says so at once and is condoled with accordingly. Indeed, the straighteners* have gone so far as to give names from the hypothetical language (as taught at the Colleges of Unreason),* to all known forms of mental indisposition, and to classify them according to a system of their own, which, though I could not understand it, seemed to work well in practice; for they are always able to tell a man what is the matter with him as soon as they have heard his story, and their familiarity with the long names assures him that they thoroughly understand his case.
* The straightener was a kind of apothecary, who helped those who had succumbed to the impulses of crime. The term, says the narrator, means “one who bends back the crooked”, and sufferers might have to bear painful cures, such as lengthy lockdowns or ‘cruel physical tortures’. Crime, though eliciting sympathy rather than censure, was taken as seriously as any disease in our own world.
* So-called because the Erewhonians were of the opinion that Reason is a destructive force that tends to hard-and-fast rules and ultimately to extremes, and therefore they preferred to take Unreason to a high art, since in messy daily life Unreason was more practical. Moreover, Reason itself relies on unreason for its very existence. “If, then, reason would be non-existent were there no such thing as unreason, surely it follows that the more unreason there is, the more reason there must be also?”
Word Games
Sevens Based on this passage
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Variations: 1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words. 2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words. 3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.
Jigsaws Based on this passage
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
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