—S. H., a prisoner

However, the thing that “popped” that late 1970s, early 1980s bubble of freedom was A.I.D.S.  Suddenly, sex could be deadly, and the resulting fear lent power to all of the voices preaching abstinence and submission to authority.
Since the Reagan era, society has been pervaded by a subtle but intense pressure to conform — to obey, to work, to consume, and to repeat the cycle.  Since about 2006, there has also been pressure to conduct one’s whole life on line, via the marvelous medium of the smart phone.  This practice leaves the individual without privacy, and without privacy, freedom is tenuous.  So we tremble on the edge of a dictatorship, but apparently, all the frogs swimming in the slowly boiling kettle are perfectly happy.

Your prediction of a dictatorship brings the Tytler Cycle to mind.  Your observations about the pressure to conform reminded me of Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, and The Tomorrow File, by Lawrence Sanders.

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Blowin’ in the Wind
Sam Aurelius Milam III
When I was seven years old, and due to a medical situation in the family, I had to live temporarily with my grandparents.  While I was living there, I had a cavity in one of my teeth filled.  My parents weren’t available at the time, and my grandparents didn’t know if I was allergic to the anesthetic.  So, the decision was made to fill the cavity without the use of an anesthetic.  I can still remember my grandmother holding my arms down.  I can still remember the dentist working on me with one of his legs thrown over my waist, holding me in the chair.  I don’t remember how they held my mouth open or how they immobilized my head.  After the procedure, as my grandmother and I were walking out through the waiting room, I was ashamed because I knew that all of those people had been listening to me scream.
Many of the hospitals in Gaza have been destroyed by the Israeli bombardment.  Others have been disabled by the siege.  They no longer have the facilities and supplies that we normally expect hospitals to have.  Patients often have to lay on the floors, and a lack of anesthetic is commonly reported.  I saw, on one of the news programs, an interview with a doctor in Gaza who reported that he’d amputated a little girl’s leg with a kitchen knife, without any anesthetic.  He said that she screamed during the entire procedure.
My experience with the dentist was minor, compared to the little girl’s amputation.  The only reason that I mentioned my experience at all was for the sake of personal testimony.  That is, I can verify that the influence of such emotional trauma isn’t likely to go away.  I expect that, even with the best prosthesis ever designed, the little girl will probably be haunted by her experience for the remainder of her life.  If she tends to avoid kitchen knives in the future, then who could blame her?
My experience was a consequence of what might be regarded as poor judgment.  The little girl’s experience was a consequence of the reprehensible behavior of lunatics, fanatics, and tyrants.  Every attempt to avoid such atrocities, and to achieve peace, understanding, or humility, has failed.  The lunatics, fanatics, and tyrants have always intervened.  Their behavior has caused ruin and agony around the world, and throughout the known history of human society.  The conundrum is that we seem to be at our best when things are bad, and at our worst when things are good.  Adversity seems to improve our strength and character.  Easy living seems to encourage complacency, sloth, or decadence.   If we ever actually became civilized, then the lack of stress and challenge might reduce our species to a such a state of indolence that we’d degenerate back to being monkeys.  Maybe there’s a way for us to be good and strong, without being violent.  Maybe there’s a way for us to have peace, without degenerating.  I don’t know.  If there are ways to accomplish such things, then I don’t know what or where they are.

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— editor

— Sam Aurelius Milam III, editor

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