- Joined
- Dec 16, 2017
I've been engaging in some world building for my series and trying to come up with an alternate political ideology to place that world into a protected cold war with "the alliance". Then it struck me, wouldn't it be a kick if Bob's personal beliefs could be turned into a semi-functional ideology partly inspired by technocracy combined with eugenics and a dash of consumerism for the proles/serfs. I'm thinking of something akin to S.M. Stirling's Draka and 1984.
Well, I did it. I wrote it as part of a timeline in bullet point form, but enjoy a background character inspired by our very own Bob. It was good for a laugh.
Failed playwright and self-professed intellectual, Rupert Schittman of Vienna self-publishes his incoherent manifesto/autobiography,Stein Für Steinor Brick by Brick in English (1871)
Schittman posits that ignorance is the source of all evil and that a class of “enlightened technocrats” should guide all societal decisions, despite his own lack of education. He shows a particular contempt for the working class/proletariat, whom he deems inferior and insists that machines will render them obsolete: “In their place will rise a 20th Century Man, who will be able to pursue intellectual and karnal pursuits unhindered by the imbecile.”
Among his bizarre claims is that the proletariat engages in incest, seemingly unaware that the ruling Hapsburgs (he praises Franz Josef and aristocracy as geniuses and visionaries) engaged in the practice. Perhaps his most chilling proposal is the use of population control against criminals and imbeciles, often misquoting Darwin’s Origin of Species. While Schittman dies less than a decade later after both legs turn gangrenous, his manifesto finds an audience among disgruntled professionals and academics.