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=                        The_Marching_Morons                         =
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                            Introduction
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"The Marching Morons" is a science fiction story by American writer
Cyril M. Kornbluth, originally published in 'Galaxy' in April 1951. It
was included in 'The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two' after
being voted one of the best novellas up to 1965.


                             Background
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In the "Introduction" to 'The Best of C. M. Kornbluth', Frederik Pohl
(Kornbluth's friend and collaborator) explains some of the inspiration
to "The Marching Morons". The work was written after Pohl suggested
that Kornbluth write a follow-up story that focuses on the future
presented in the short story "The Little Black Bag". In contrast to
the "little black bag" arriving in the past from the future, Kornbluth
wanted to write about a man arriving in the future from the past. To
explain sending a man to the future, Kornbluth borrowed from David
Butler's 1930 science fiction film 'Just Imagine', in which a man is
struck by lightning, trapped in suspended animation, and reanimated in
the future. In "The Marching Morons", after the character John Barlow
is told how he had been in a state of suspended animation, Barlow
mutters, "Like that movie."


                                Plot
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In 1988, real estate agent and con artist John Barlow is placed in
suspended animation after a freak accident. He is revived in the
distant future, in a confusing world filled with hypersexualized
advertisements, vapid entertainment, and people who exhibit erratic,
nonsensical behavior. Shortly after being revived, Barlow is
introduced to two men, Tinny-Peete and Ryan-Ngana, who inform him that
the lamentable state of society is the fault of the "morons", the
world's vast population of unintelligent people, who greatly outnumber
the much smaller population of intelligent people.

Tinny-Peete and Ryan-Ngana explain to Barlow that the most urgent
crisis of their time is the population problem ("Poprob").
Historically, people of higher intelligence often chose to have few
children (or no children at all) for pragmatic reasons, while people
of lower intelligence, compelled by their sex drives, had larger
families and reproduced in greater numbers. By the far future era in
which Barlow has awakened, this unbalanced trend has been carried to
its logical extreme, with a total world population of five billion
morons (with an average IQ of 45) living under the supervision of
three million members of an elite, intellectual upper-class who
secretly govern world affairs. Both Tinny-Peete and Ryan-Ngana are
members of this group.

The simple-minded morons cannot be left to govern themselves or else
the world will descend into chaos and war. As a result, the elite
minority are effectively "enslaved" by the moron majority, working
themselves to exhaustion while attempting to maintain global order and
stability. Controlling the morons' population growth is impractical
for several reasons, but unless some corrective action is taken, the
inevitable outcome will be the depletion of Earth's dwindling natural
resources, followed by the total collapse of human civilization. All
attempts to solve Poprob have failed, and the elite hope that Barlow,
as a man from a different time and with a different perspective on the
problem, might be able to offer a novel solution.

Barlow has an idea, but he refuses to elaborate until Tinny-Peete and
Ryan-Ngana agree to formally name him dictator of the entire world,
promising him wealth, power, and fame. Taking inspiration from his
knowledge of fraudulent real estate deals, propaganda techniques
employed by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust, and the myth of
lemmings drowning themselves in the sea, Barlow devises a plan for the
extermination of the moron population. Barlow orchestrates a massive
propaganda campaign encouraging the morons to migrate to the planet
Venus. The overcrowded and inefficient cities in which the morons
reside are to be dismantled, their steel used to construct fleets of
rockets ostensibly intended to ferry people to Venus; in reality,
because the "rockets" (disguised passenger airplanes) are not actually
capable of space flight, the morons will simply be flown out to sea
and disposed of in an orderly fashion. To allay any suspicion, forged
postcards are sent from Venusian "colonists" to their families,
describing Venus as a lush tropical paradise and encouraging them to
follow. The United States Congress, under the control of the elite,
promotes the colonization of Venus as an extension of manifest destiny
and guarantees Venusian settlers permanent land rights on the planet.
This sparks widespread nationalistic fervor as the various nations of
Earth all adopt similar approaches and race to reach Venus in order to
stake their own claims.

Barlow's plan is a complete success; Earth is gradually emptied of
morons and Poprob is solved. While reviewing his ledger, Barlow comes
across an entry for an unauthorized project called "Poprobterm". When
he demands an explanation, his assistants lead him to a waiting,
functional rocket, force him aboard, and immediately launch the rocket
into space; the sudden acceleration crushes Barlow against the floor,
killing him. The elite, disgusted by Barlow's ruthlessness and
cruelty, have disposed of him as part of the "final cleanup" of
Poprob.


                              See also
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* 'The City Without Jews'
* 'A Day Without a Mexican'
* Fertility and intelligence
* Flynn effect
* Eugenics and Dysgenics
* 'The Gene Bomb'
* 'Harrison Bergeron'
* 'Idiocracy'
* 'The Man Who Sold the Moon'
* 'Search the Sky'
* 'The Space Merchants'


                           External links
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*
*[https://archive.org/stream/Galaxy_v02n01_1951-04#page/n129/mode/2up
"The Marching Morons"] at the Internet Archive
*"The Marching Morons" at Project Gutenberg


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