As the plans for our Utopia came nearer to realisation, so discussions on the employment and containment of power became more urgent. In what sort of context would an autocratic temperament like Bondi’s be content? How could the admirable restlessness of enquiry be satisfied by a Utopian calm? How could our Utopia maintain both stability and change? These were some of the questions that confronted us.
We debated the nature of power and the striving for power. Eventually it was Choihosla who suggested that we should question our concept of power itself.
He began by asking us a riddle. Who is it who holds most power of life and death over another?
Answers from the floor included an executioner, an army sergeant in the heat of battle, a murderer, the chief of a savage tribe, the launcher of nuclear missiles, and (mischievously) a scientist.
Choihosla shook his head. “The answer is—a mother over her newborn child. Bear that in mind while I speak to you.”
He said he realised his proposals would be anathema to all whose brains had been, as he put it, “dissolved by the Western way of life”. But a little thought was needed on the matter and that thought must be directed to overturning accepted ideas of power as an opportunity for gain.
The various presidents, monarchs and dictators who wielded power Downstairs were not to be emulated Upstairs. All of them sought to accumulate wealth for themselves. The citizens under them also sought to accumulate wealth for themselves. We, fortunately, had no wealth. Nevertheless we would need a leader, a man or a woman, to whom all questions of justice could eventually be referred. He suggested this person should assume the title of Prime Architect. The title was neutral as regards gender, and it correctly implied that something constructive was going on.
But the conception of power as a force that enabled an individual to gain more than was his or her due had to be discarded. Power had to derive from the determination to achieve and maintain a well-organised society. Since this determination would be reinforced by the hope—however illusory—of achieving the perfectability of humanity, it would follow that the powerless would not be harmed by power, any more than a child is harmed by the mother’s power over him. Indeed, the linkages of power, from officials to parents, to children, to pets, would share by example the unifying hope of a general well-being. Both child and mother benefit by the maternal wielding of power.
At this point, Cang Hai said, “You are trying to bring back Confucianism!”
“Not so,” replied Choihosla. “Confucianism was too rigid and limited, although it contained many enlightened ideas. But these days we hear much about ‘human rights’ and too little about human responsibilities. In our Utopia, responsibility carries with it satisfaction and a better chance for benevolence.”
“So what is your revised nature of power to be?” someone asked.
“No, no.” He shook his heavy head, as if regretting he had spoken in the first place. “How can I say? I don’t seek to change the nature of power—that’s ridiculous. Only our attitude to power. Power in itself is a neutral thing; it’s the use of it that must be changed from malevolent to benevolent. By thought, by empathy. I am sure it can be done. Then power will provide a chance to increase everyone’s well-being. Given a society already positive in aspect, that will be the greatest satisfaction. Both Prime Architect and citizen will benefit by what I might call a maternal wielding of power.”
He was a big clumsy man. He looked oddly humble as he finished speaking and folded his massive arms across his chest.
After a meditative silence all round, Crispin said, quietly, “You are wanting human nature to change.”
“But not all human nature,” Choihosla replied. “Some of us already hold the concept of power-as-greed in contempt. And I think you are one of them, Mr. Barcunda!”
While the excavations for our extension were in progress, I was busier than ever. Fortunately, our secretary, the silent Elsa Lamont, arranged my appointments and saw that I kept them. She and Suung Saybin dealt personally with all those applying for rooms in the new building.
Unexpectedly, one evening, working late at night when we should both of us have been relaxing, Elsa turned to me and said, “In my love affairs, I have always been the one who was loved.”
I was startled, since I had not associated the rather drab-looking Elsa with affairs of the heart or the body. For me, she was just an ex-commercial artist with a head for figures.
“Why are the figures I paint faceless? Tom, I realise I am not capable of deep love. It’s unfair to my partners, isn’t it?”
Since my eyebrows were already raised, I could only think to ask, “What has prompted this reflection, Elsa?”
She had been thinking about Choihosla’s redefinition of power. Mothers loved deeply, yes, she said. But perhaps for those who were unable to love deeply, power was the next best thing. Perhaps power was a kind of corruption of the reproductive process.
“I can see that the need to be free to reproduce can lead to all kinds of power struggle…” I began.
Elsa repeated the words slowly, as if they were a mantra, “ ‘I can see that the need to be free to reproduce can lead to all kinds of power struggle…’ That’s true throughout nature, isn’t it? We have to hope that we can unite to prove Choihosla’s statement holds some truth.” Then without pause, she added, “A delegation of women has booked a forum in Hindenburg Hall tomorrow, 10 p.m. They wish to talk about better ways—more congenial ways, I suppose—of giving birth. Can you be there?”
“Um … you’re not trying to tell me you’re pregnant, are you, Elsa?”
Perhaps a pallid smile crossed her face. “Certainly not,” she said. “If only I were pregnant with the truth…”
She turned back to her work. And then said, “Could be I prefer detachment, rather than letting go and returning the love of my lovers. Does that give me more power?”
It sounded like a weakness to me, but I cautiously treated her question as rhetorical.
Prompt at ten next morning, a delegation of women met under the giant Hindenburg mural.
The Greek woman, Helen Panorios, spoke on behalf of the group. She placed her hands on her hips and stood without gesture as she spoke.
“We make a demand that may at first seem strange to most of you. Please hear us out. We women require a special apartment in the new extension. It need not be too large, as long as it is properly equipped. We wish to call it the Birth Room, and for no men ever to be allowed inside it. It will be sacred to the processes of birth.”
She was interrupted by Mary Fangold, the hospital personnel manager. “Excuse me. Of course I have heard this notion circulating. It is a ridiculous duplication of work that our hospital’s maternity branch already carries out effectively. We have a splendid record of natal care. Mothers are up and out a day after parturition, without complications. I oppose this so-called ‘Birth Room’ on the grounds that it is unreasonable and a slur against the reputation of our hospital.”
Helen Panorios barely moved a muscle.
“It is your cooperation, not your opposition we hope for, Mary. You condemn your system by your own words. You see, the hospital still carries out production-line methods—mothers in one day, out the next. Just as if we were machines, and babies to be turned out like—like so many hats. It’s all so old-fashioned and against nature.”
Another woman joined in support. “We have spent so much time talking about the upbringing and education of our children without looking at the vital matter of their first few hours in this world. This period is when the bonding process between mother and child must take place.
The bustle of our hospital is not conducive to that process, and may indeed be in part the cause of negligent mothers and disruptive children. The Birth Room will change all that.”