Trope-a-Day: Crapsaccharine World
Crapsaccharine World: The Equality Concord. Sure, it’s a fully-functioning Communist utopia, full of happy people working away, enjoying socially approved recreational activities, and going home each night to their loving families – from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs, with seemingly no blots on the landscape anywhere.
It would probably implode horribly over the course of a few months if you switched off the memory-redaction and emotional-stimulus implants, but as long as nobody realizes that they’re being brainwashed into happiness, contentment and satisfaction with their lives, jobs, families, and almost completely impaired volition – and they are happy, content, and satisfied, not merely pretending to be, and with no real buried selves screaming inside; modern brainwashing techniques really are that good – it’s as good as the real thing, right?
Right?