combat writing badge C O M B A T
the Literary Expression of Battlefield Touchstones
ISSN 1542-1546 Volume 01 Number 03 Summer ©Jul 2003



Resurrecting Paradise
a satire



"If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened — that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death ... Who controls the past, ran the Party slogan, controls the future; who controls the present controls the past."
by George Orwell [(Eric Arthur Blair) Nineteen Eighty-Four (1948)]

I'm terribly upset. My distress is complicated by shame and regret ... for my inadvertent betrayal. Apologies won't help ... the milk is spilled, and I must live with the result. I never wanted to be one of them, and now I've led them to my poor brother. I've not only cast my lot, but his as well ... and I was only trying to help.

For as long as I can remember, my father and grandfather have led my brother away into the wilderness for secret instruction in private meetings. As soon as I was old enough, I would sneak away, and follow them to their rendezvous. For a long time I just watched their rituals in a vague sense of mystified companionship. I tried not to get caught, but I got lost once in bad weather, and they found me ... tired, hungry, alone, and frightened. They comforted me, making me feel welcome, and I promised to never reveal their activities. Perhaps, now that I've betrayed their trust, everything would be different if I had perished in the wilds ... I wish I had.

After I was accepted as a co-conspirator, my fathers let me listen to my brother's indoctrination. It was confusing, because their legends contradicted the history and traditions taught in school, recorded in publications, and assumed to be normal at home. I was cautioned about revealing these inconsistencies, and my brother told me that this restraint was the first step in growing-up. As I heard more, and joined in the exercises, I learned that self-discipline was the most essential part of maturation. I later learned, from both cultures, that deception was a valuable tactic, but only one of several viable means to a desired objective. My teachers did not use contrasts, but my fathers did, and it was crucial to my understanding that things had not always been the way they are now. I had to compartmentalize my knowledge, like a different language or separate religion, so as not to confuse the educational process at home. I could not tell my friends, and could not speculate about alternatives with them.

Unlike the doctrine presented by my mothers and the sisterhood, my fathers offered consistency and achievement. I learned logic and debate with my brother, so my attitudes were more unrestricted. I learned games and martial arts with my brother, so my abilities were more unconfined. We built a tree house, explored caves, crafted tools, watched wildlife ... and investigated natural processes. My curiosity prompted inquiries that were practically taboo in the a priori doctrine of the sisterhood ... and I became a convert to the underground masculine subculture.

I have now been told that my attraction to an alien lifestyle was the result of a childishly overactive imagination, and a normal rebellion against authority. They have promised that I will forget my immature fixations with the commencement of my menarche ... but I remember what my fathers said about eunuchism. I sincerely regret the plight of my poor brother, as if my sympathies could change anything. I'd wanted to show my brother how much I loved him by bringing him some of his favorite foods to take on his journey, but I led his captors right to his encampment. My fathers had constructed a relief map for him to study in preparation for his exile to the remote and covert male redoubts. My fathers had been stymied in their attempted emigrations, and now my brother was too. He would've needed all the skills my fathers had taught him, since he not only had to remain undetected in his transition, but would also have to exfiltrate through the ramparts that insulate and isolate us.

Because I had transgressed, the sisterhood confided to me that males were the root of all evil, and that in ancient times, men were the cause of everything that was wrong with the world. They told me that males generated pain and hostility as an expression of selfhood, and that men were insensitive to the suffering that they caused. They said that men couldn't walk and chew at the same time, so it was incumbent upon women to relieve them of the burden of complexity, of their innate propensity to fumble ... no more juggling of heart, mind, and testicles. They said that men were happier with simplistic functions, so women released them from the frustrations of primal conflicts. Men are no longer conflicted by elemental motives contending with their mental abstractions. Because men had failed to control their genitals, and constantly abused their superior strength, a remedy was contrived for their base instincts.

A postulate of nascent Feminism was that a perfect world would be one without violence or hate, without risk or competition, without lustful degradation or repulsive urges to upset the utopian reign of peace and love, of supreme contentment and surpassing joy. Because females had evolved further and were mentally superior, women restored the divine hierarchy by subterfuge, sabotage, and seduction; resulting in a coup that successfully subordinated all males. The restored regime emasculated all adult males, established an accredited sperm bank, instituted sensitivity training, and re-oriented productivity toward consumerism. Many pathetic women, who had been brainwashed into male adoration as a component of domestic slavery, required re-education. Unfortunately, some women were unable to overcome their heterosexual addictions, which necessitated their imprisonment. Even though nymphomania was already recognized as a mental illness in the decadent realm of male fantasies, all genetic abnormalities and psychosocial perversions were subsequently eliminated from the gene-pool. It has been necessary to subject men to regular confession and self-criticism sessions in order to foster self-improvement, because geneticists have been unable to expunge all of man's worst traits. Accordingly, eternal vigilance is required.

The Feminist redirection of adolescent male misorientation, with its concomitant sensitization of male propensities, hearkens back to the creeping do-gooder-ism of political-correctness and the encroaching double-jeopardy of hate speech. Feminists codified relevant crimes, such as redefining rape as dissatisfaction, and alienation as a too restrictive allowance. Feminist vigilantism instituted dating permits, relational contracts, and abortion on demand. The New Thought Police sisterhood is promoting non-violent toys on peace trips to dramatize the evolved post-modern habitat of constructive and creative cooperation, which contrasts with the destructive and competitive past ordained by males. My fathers warned me, as a political maxim, that in order to rationally exterminate the opposition, one must first dehumanize the enemy. It is so in our paradisiacal catechism.

My brother and I learned from our fathers that New Age, Third Wave, and other apocalyptic millennialisms promoting mass-mania and other weird alternative lifestyles, had sporadically erupted throughout history, as extremist factions of various sorts manipulated power for their own ends. My fathers said that every political and religious entity propounded some form of paradise, variously contradictory and mutually exclusive, and all extraordinarily fantastic. Not only did contending groups recruit adherents based upon imaginary benefits and hypothetical results, but visionaries wrote eutopian fiction, in the manner of unfounded myths ... one's Cockaigne or Arcadia, Shangri-la or Xanadu, Beulah or Saturnalia is another's Nirvana or Erehwon. The new sisterhood defines paradise as whatever I want whenever I want it, or whatever I don't want whenever I don't want it. It is emotion or reason, sensitivity or abstinence, work or leisure according to her schedule and on her terms. It's the prevailing form of moody self-indulgence.

They told me that men managed aggressively and administered repressively; and that the male epoch vacillated from crisis to crisis. Women, being less exclusive and less violent, sought creation, cultivation, and cooperation as [wo]mandates. The once denigrated feminine logic sought to enable as many options and solutions as possible ... unlike the narrowly delimiting masculine logic which confines alternatives and restricts answers to some ostensibly correct answer. Such reductionism prevented the conflict between thoughts and feelings to coexist, so women were deprived of their usurpation prerogatives. Such confusion aggravated contradictions resulting in multiplied inconsistencies. Too many women blamed men for their dichotomies and bifurcations. Men mocked women for falling victim to their own illogic ... women want to eat sweets and lose weight at the same time, want to be simultaneously caring and commanding. They reminded me of the Feminist proverb that the Queen believes six impossible things everyday before breakfast. My fathers, who had taught me incontrovertible math, warned that this Feminist monopolization precluded objective correction. I learned that there would be no more Titans to rescue distressed damsels from themselves.

The Feminist Revolution stratified society in new ways. Rather than a simple inversion, of replacing autocratic males with democratic females, technology was also subordinated to moral relativism. No longer would men sublimate fructification with artistic invention. No longer would men substitute physical prowess for mental agility. The authority of men was countermanded, and the rights of males were rescinded. Males were assigned new roles, as were women. Adolescent males were compelled to support social engineering by donating to the accredited sperm bank; and were henceforth converted into drones for the benefit of society. Women were bred selectively, with alpha primes of either sex, then were relieved of child rearing for career development. As in the animal kingdom, it soon became apparent that even neutered males could prevail over indulgent females, so a domineering sect of zealous Amazons were recreated. The rebirth of Amazonian ideals meshed with Feminist ideals, and antedated the epoch of masculine repression.

The new Amazons were an aristocratic elite who superintended and defended society. They trained as a religious and military bloc which is devoted to preserving the pure tenets of the Revolution. As with their ancient exemplars, they are intellectually and physically superior specimens of womanhood, who remove one breast for better use of weapons. My fathers analogized the new Amazonians to the Jesuits, the Sturmabteilung, and the other Thought Police throughout history. My brother and I were told that early Feminist doctrine claimed that men were afraid of capable or forceful women, so refused to relinquish their suzerainty, and declined to institute dual formations ... hence the revival of Amazonia. Unfortunately, due to an expanding counterinsurgency and a countervailing masculine nationalism, the Amazonian syndicate has had to markedly increase its ranks, which has diminished the quality of recruits. To compensate, the Amazonian consorority has resorted to enhancing feminine traits with male attributes derived from the emasculation process. My fathers asserted that these power balls boost dykes into a ruling dominance which could not be otherwise sustained.

I do not want to become an Amazon any more than my poor brother wants to become a drone. Now that my captured brother had reached puberty, he would make his required deposit into the accredited sperm bank, would be forcibly castrated, and compelled to assume his new vocational role in service to our paradisiacal society. My fathers told me that he would not recognize me afterwards, and that I should pretend ignorance. Even though my heart aches, they said it would be best for everyone.

I am resolved to flee in my brother's stead. I have undertaken all of his training with my fathers, and I am still prepubescent, so the sisterhood cannot yet draft me. I want to know the truth, and to test myself. I want to experience the unknown, and to make personal decisions. I want to learn about irregularity and imprecision. I want to learn about tribalism, divided labor, and dyadic potential. I want to experiment with autonomy, independence, responsibility, and survival. I want to discover my reactions to fear and danger and evil, and to discover if I am strong enough to be a complete human being ... instead of a compilation of statistical factors. I want to be enticed by the unplanned, and to express my unsuspected interests. I seek individualistic fulfillment beyond the seclusion of paradise.


"The hand that rocks the cradle / Is the hand that rules the world."
by W.R. Wallace [The Hand That Rules the World (1865)]

"Women would rather be right than reasonable."
by Ogden Nash [Frailty, Thy Name Is a Misnomer in Marriage Lines (1964)]

"Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry."
by Gloria Steinem [Sept 1981 Yale University address]

"Man has his will — but woman has her way."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr [The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858)]

"Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less."
by Susan B. Anthony [motto of The Revolution (1868)]



by O. Henrietta Porter
... who is the mother of a soldier, the wife of a soldier, and the daughter of soldiers back to the American Revolution; and whose compositions have appeared in various newsletters, magazines, and chapbooks.