Looking Backward from the Tricentennial

Chapter Eighteen (part 1)

Julian glanced up at the indicator lights—two reds and a green—when he reentered the parlor on Thursday afternoon. Idabee's projection was there waiting, and he was about to sit in the chair next to her when a man's form began to appear. Stepping away in surprise, Julian settled on the loveseat instead and waited for the lights to turn solid green.

The arrival turned out to be a white man in his early seventies, with a full head of gray hair, big bushy eyebrows, and a neatly trimmed beard. His eyes, Julian couldn't help but notice, were green. "Welcome, Professor Carlton," Idabee said, hands pressed together in greeting. "I'm grateful for your visit."

Julian was struck by a momentary incongruity; the visit was taking place in his—Dr. Leete's—parlor, not Idabee's. Then he realized this exact scene was playing out in her parlor as well as Carlton's. Did this mean he was visiting the other man's parlor despite having no clue of his physical location on the planet? Before Julian's mind could go too far down the linguistic rabbit hole, he realized the others were looking at him expectantly.

He pressed his palms together. "Thank you for joining us," Julian said after introductions were made. "I know a bit about nonviolence from Martin Luther King Jr.'s work, but I don't understand how a political system can be based on it. Idabee thought you could help explain."

"Of course! Dr. King's work is part of the foundation for the American Union," Carlton began. "You probably know he was a student of Gandhi's, one of the architects of the larger philosophical framework of nonviolence. Nonviolence carries certain duties, and the American Union used them to address the largest social problems America faced, the triple evils King identified as poverty, racism, and militarism."

"That was the first platform the American Union brought to the voters," Idabee reminded Julian. "End poverty, end mass incarceration, end the endless wars." The phrase brought a warm smile to Carlton's face. He looked at Julian and fell silent. Unclear if his gaze was scrutiny or if the gray-haired man was merely lost in reflection, Julian and Idabee waited.

"The United States was at a historic turning point," Carlton started suddenly. "Have you heard of the Phoenix Cycle?" Julian nodded cautiously. "It began with the Revolutionary War; years of fighting left such bitter feelings that three decades later, we ended up at war with the British again. Contrast this with Gandhi's methods in India's struggle for independence. It's said his genius was that he allowed the British to leave as friends.

"The second iteration brought about the Civil War. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died in the fighting. Yes, we abolished chattel slavery, but the violence in the way we did it left scars on our nation's psyche that took nearly two hundred years to heal.

"But," Carlton brightened, "America's rebirth during the New Deal was accomplished nonviolently! After the Great Depression hit and FDR was elected, a peaceful transfer of power and a supermajority in Congress let him take the reins of the nation and guide it to one where the general welfare of the nation was promoted like never before, ushering in decades of prosperity.

"When the pandemic struck, we were on the cusp of a new societal restructuring. The status quo was a sinking ship; there was no choice but to find an alternative. It didn't have to be a peaceful process, though," Carlton concluded. "I knew many people back then who thought there would be a civil war."

Julian nodded emphatically. "We were just talking about how polarized politics was. Neither party was going to get a supermajority like FDR; the system was broken." He confessed the extent of his frustration. "I was willing to fight to change it; I just didn't know how or where to start. Stella Freedom said the American Union was pitched as a moral crusade to fight Dr. King's triple evils. But I don't see how fasting changes how politics works."