‘If we are to remain long enough on Mars, our eccentric friend here, Thomas Jefferies, will try to perform a feat equivalent in sociological terms to Kepler’s, reducing to regulation what has always been a tangle of conflicting patterns of behaviour from which, to my mind, creativity has sprung.’
Bondi could not resist that final dig at me.
Yes, ours was an ambitious task. I saw, as he did not, that it could be accomplished because we were a small population, and one which, as it happened, had been self-selected for its social awareness.
During one debate the Ukrainian Muslim YEA named Youssef Choihosla rose and declared that we were all wasting our time. He said that whatever rules of conduct we drew up, even those to which we had readily given universal consent, we would break; such was the nature of mankind.
He was continuing in this vein when a woman of distinguished appearance spoke up to ask him cuttingly if he considered we should have no rules?
Choihosla paused. And if we were to have rules, pursued the woman, pressing home her advantage and looking increasingly majestic, was it not wise to discover what the best rules were and then try to abide by them?
The Ukrainian became defensive. He had spent his year of community service, he claimed, working in an asylum for the mentally deranged in Sarajevo. He had experienced terrible things there. He believed as a result that what Carl Jung called ‘the shadow’ would always manifest itself. It was therefore useless to hope to establish even a mockery of a Utopia. You could not pump morality into a system to which it was not indigenous. (A year or two later, interestingly, he would put forward a much more positive viewpoint.)
Several voices attempted to answer him. The woman who had previously spoken quelled them with her clear firm tones. Her name was Belle Rivers. She was the headmistress in charge of the cadre children, semi-permanently stationed on Mars.
‘Why is there a need for laws, you ask? Are laws not present in all societies, to guard against human “shadows”? As scientific people, we are aware that the human body is a museum of its phylogenetic history. Our psyches too are immensely old; their roots lie in times before we could claim the name of human. Only our individual minds belong to ontology, and they are transient. It is the creatures – our archetypes, Jung calls them – that reside in the unconscious, like your shadow, which act as prompts to the behaviour of the human species.
‘The archetypes live in an inner world, where the pulse of time throbs at a drowsy pace, scarcely heeding the birth and death of individuals. Their nature is strange: when they broke into the conscious minds of your patients in Sarajevo, they undoubtedly would have precipitated psychosis. Your psychurgists will tell you as much.
‘But we moderns know these things. The archetypes have been familiar to us for more than a century. Instead of fearing them, of trying to repress them, we should come to terms with them. That means coming to terms with ourselves.
‘I believe that we must draw up our rules firmly and without fear, in acknowledgement of our conscious wishes. I also regard it as healthy that we acknowledge our unconscious wishes.
‘I therefore propose that every seventh day be given over to bacchanalia, when ordinary rules of conduct are suspended.’
My glance went at once to the bench where Sharon Singh lounged. She was gazing serenely at the roof, the long fingers of one hand tapping gently on the rail of her seat. She was calm while much shouting and calls for order continued round her.
An old unkempt man rose to speak. He had once been Governor of the Seychelles; his name was Crispin Barcunda. We had spoken often. I enjoyed his quiet sense of humour. When he laughed a gold tooth sparkled briefly like a secret signal.
‘This charming lady puts forward a perfectly workable idea,’ he said, attempting to smooth down his mop of white hair. ‘Why not have the odd bacchanalia now and again? No one on Earth need know. We’re private, here on Mars, aren’t we?’