All the Stories
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Turnip Hierarchy
A group of people - this is a true story about materialism - found an island where they learned to grow turnips. It went well until they lost their crop to thieves who came in the night - both animal and human. Ok, so we need a night shift.
Many years later (or soon enough), a young boy lay on the floor of a dark and dirty room, trying to sleep, mind racing. He was hungry, but he drew his blanket warm around him and used the time to wish he was somewhere else, like in an alpine meadow, or maybe even someone else, like a Day-Shifter. You could tell them right away because they looked like Gods and had more turnips. ___________________________________________________________________________________
Tables Turning
Twelve of us slept in one big room and when we ate together it was like a hurricane. Tuesday was clean pyjama night but also spaghetti bolognaise, so that for the rest of the week the kids were covered in blood. Jeanette B., the latest arrival, had been abused and spent much time silently staring at her shoes. She had fine ginger hair and a different coloured skin. Each day, the grownups bused us to the village school where we were by far the largest group. The Barney brothers (pig farmers) came in second with five, and there were three Davis sisters (who lived in the Post Office). On her first day, two boys cornered Jeanette in the playground and hooted at her as she cowered against the wall. She was crying when Rikki showed up, then Sarah, then two more. Soon, the rest of us wandered over and the swelling group took the bully's faces through a rainbow of expressions that started with easy confidence, then growing surprise and as our numbers increased still further, shock. Swept by a clouding and cringing fear, they crept away. Rikki grinned and Sarah patted Jeanette on the shoulder. The numbers had changed Jeanette's face also, as she no longer looked at her shoes but instead gazed out across the gathering of ruffians that surrounded her. It was funny to see her face as the cloud of fear slowly lifted.
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Indivisible Worth
While Captain Evans was dying in his hospital bed he was much comforted by a teenager who visited him daily. Boy or girl, they did not speak, but simply moved up alongside him, sitting there unafraid and glowing like an example. Only some could see this, just as only some can perceive the beauty in everyday heroes, in a short and pain-filled life or in not being especially gifted. Certainly, everything can be quantified - if you're willing to do it badly - and anything can be fragmented and assessed on its tradable value. Numbers can stand in for reality. But few hear the hiss of meaning as it drains away, so when the Captain finally died, they fired the teenager.
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Superpower
Paulo B. spent his whole life selling his labour-power, partly because that was all he had and partly because that was what you do. In this way, he sold most of his 'brief flash of light between two eternities of darkness' for a quantifiable, and not very large, fee. One night he dreamed he was walking in a cavernous corridor of dark wood and green felt, with a floor that clicked as you walked and looming paintings. Ahead, at the far end of the corridor, a thin man approached, barely filling his suit and carrying a briefcase. As he came nearer he seemed to speed up, so that poor dreaming Paulo opened his arms, curling them out like pincers. There was a huge bang. Flames arced away from him, striking the wall and stripping down the paintings. He staggered, coughed and blew out the side of the building. When it was over he could see the trees moving in the wind outside. The blast just missed the thin man in the suit, who gazed down at his dust-covered briefcase, now lying dead on the floor. Paulo apologised. Then he apologised again. He dusted off the thin man's briefcase and handed it back. Honestly! He hadn't meant to do that at all!
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Power & Rising High Tones
'Empty your pockets. That's right. I'm going to handcuff you, but you're not under arrest, just detained. Ok?'
'If you say so.'
'Go over there and sit down with the others. We’ll get to you. Ok?'
'Well no, not really. You have pulled me off the bus and handcuffed me and I don't know why so I'm not ok. Not really.'
'Don't give me that. I could shoot you now and no one would give a damn. Like I said, we'll get to you.' Then he turned away and said, mostly to himself, 'Ok.'
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Pick Your Product
A proud historian called Dax had a problem with sugar. Whenever he saw it - loose or bagged - he immediately fell into a yawning vertigo where the floor became the ceiling and the walls liquified. He would then drop to the ground as images dashed before him, he said of plantations, of slaves thrashing at canes in a burning heat, of ships laden and in full sail, of huge piles of blood-soaked sugar. Usually, Sarah would tap him on the cheek and he would blink, struggling to restore the filter. Then she would explain to the gathering crowd that the man was fine. He just has a problem with sugar. After a few moments, Dax would stand up, dust himself off and grin.
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The Wildebeest Defence
Wildebeest avoid becoming lunch by overwhelming their predators with numbers. Their teeming activity, dust, sounds and flashing hooves, jam the Lion’s cognition who blink and squint in vain. If you paint a blue circle on the side of a Wildebeest, it is quickly singled out, hunted down and eaten. The blue circle enables the lions to simplify, to pick out just that one wildebeest, after which the animal stands little chance. Presumably, the yellow star, the coloured triangles and orange jump suit, a wheelchair, white cane, dirty clothes, long beard, black skin, breasts, scarred wrists – any difference imaginable – can serve to focus the cognition of predators. We rely on the Wildebeest Defence more than we should.
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Heart Pain
At the age of eight, Ibrahim had never met his farther, but suddenly he comes to visit. The worker says, 'this is your father' and 'how about that?' That first time, Ibrahim would not play and while the adults talked, he sulked politely. In his second visit, the father read him a story and in the third, took him for a drive. That night Ibrahim cried, writhing in his bed and alarming the other children. He was sobbing uncontrollably, too proud to admit he missed his father.
The kids shouted and at last a worker burst in and grabbed him.
'What's wrong?'
'It's my heart.'
'Your heart? Oh my God! Chest pain?'
Ibrahim nodded, wincing and clutching himself, while the others leaned out from their beds.
'I'll get someone. I'll call an ambulance. I'll get someone.'
But their fear was a cold shower and Ibrahim's 'pain' vanished. For a moment he just lay there gasping. Then he whispered, 'It's ok. Honest. My father left today, that's all.'
The worker let out a great breath and bent down towards the floor. 'Thank God. So you're ok. You had me terrified there for a moment.'
It was many years before Ibrahim saw his father again.
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We Are Family
You say your father, George, was never home, that he was always working. But when a child himself, he was an aeroplane nut, a train-spotter of the flying kind, a butterfly collector of warplanes. He could draw them, recognise their type by silhouette and it served also to annoy his younger brother. In 1942, in London, the air raid siren screamed and the two boys heard the engines of the planes. People ran past but George just stood there and stared purposefully, shielding his eyes with his hand.
'Heinkels,' he said.
His brother tugged at his sleeve. 'Let’s get to the shelter!'
But George would not move. 'Heinkels,' he repeated, and Dorniers.'
They were too late getting to the tube and so hid behind a low wall with their hands over their ears. That day, the station took a direct hit and 85 people died.
'You are mental,' said his brother afterwards, but George thought he should be thanked. They went on to live long and argumentative lives that drove their families to despair, but they were immigrants and proud of it. They worked too hard and then they died. I am that younger brother's son, so I should know.
Among the families with whom I have hidden, our own was the least helpful. Eventually, I found my mother's grave and got to know my real father and brother, but it took many years and now they too are gone and have taken their stories with them.
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Safe
John Barr was so lucky he could cry. He had never seen a war, never been hungry and never wanted for money. He had work and a family and could drive anywhere he pleased. Each night he filled his stomach and slept in a dry bed. Each day he purchased things. He could walk to the park if he wanted, lie on the sweet breath of the grass, gazing up at the trees as they swayed and spilled the sunlight. But wait...
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Roland's Refusal
Roland B. of County D. lived a long life, throughout which he refused to learn. He disliked being told what to do, could not cope with frustration and wanted the world and its ridiculous people to get out of his way. His parents did their best, his schools also, but Roland remained proud of his ignorance and would not give it up. In this he was much encouraged by his friends, who shared his condition. He avoided reading and instead played on his phone. He did not work because he really couldn't see the point, so he played all day and got drunk at night. He was active and busy, so it's not that he was lazy; he just didn't like having to do things. He finally worked in his father's business, where he had to do very little. When news came through that his father's company had poisoned an entire village, Roland denied he had any knowledge of the matter, then that it wasn't that bad and finally that 'these things simply are a cost of business'. They presented him with the facts, showed him the evidence and screened the video of the children dying, but still he refused any culpability until, at last, flustered and on camera, he claimed the dead villagers had 'brought it on themselves.' A willful blindness perhaps, though later his wife left him and he told a friend it was 'completely out of the blue.'
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Unthinking
Always sleeping, I resolved to make something of myself. I walked down the street that summer evening, Alan at my side and we were on our way. Drinks, sounds; no thought for tomorrow. But we met someone by chance, and watched his life change.
Alan would not touch him, I remember that. There was blood on my hands and arms and I was calling but he stood back. The fallen man was apologising, over and again. A short middle-aged woman used her phone to get help, but then hurried away. We waited for perhaps twenty minutes while a crowd gathered, their blank hungry faces obscured by phones. The police arrived before the ambulance, and they bundled him unceremoniously into the back of their van. They told us not to worry, as it often happens. They saw it all the time. Then they drove off. For a moment, we stood transfixed, with the blood drying and tugging on my arms, my shirt stained violent red. Alan’s face displayed his revulsion.
Later, at home, the fallen man haunted me; all that day, and the next. I cried and his twisted body turned within me like a message. This is how low we sink: writhing in red while others watch, fearful and fascinated. I resolved instead to rejoice, as I did not fit this world and never would. Alan and I drifted apart, but I still use the fallen man to awaken.
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Was He 'Merton Compliant'?
Josephine, originally from Watford but later Newcastle, had little money and was living on a friend's couch when the Home Office gave her a job conducting interviews with asylum seekers. Her trainer said: 'We value all our staff who work tirelessly to keep the public safe, protect the UK Border and ensure we have an effective immigration system.' Josephine was trained by a man who had himself only been there a couple of weeks but he tried his best to answer her questions.
Same thing with Rebaz of South Sudan but now England. No one could answer his questions either. He had left his dead farm and crossed the world, chased by fear, learning to wait and run, using the family's money. Then he went on a boat! He loved the UK Coast Guard because they pulled him out of the water, gave him a blanket and some soup. But he was detained for weeks in an 'Immigration Removal Centre' with many people in each building. He had no idea where he was or what might happen. Rebaz was sixteen, but tall, so the Home Office had changed his date of birth to make him an adult. All he had were the clothes he wore, a free SIM card (but no phone) and a smattering of creative English 'learned from YouTube.' Big grin. 'I want to learn. I want to work.' He liked the rain.
Josephine interviewed him through toughened glass. Caseworkers must record a certain number of asylum rejections and that day she was upset. Somehow, she had been eased into the role of executioner! How did they do that? There was intimidation here too, she could feel it, but she mistook her discomfort for weakness. That morning, the pressure of numbers, the toughened glass and the horror of her power, overwhelmed her. What a place! It was not surprising that 'decisions on whether an applicant can stay in the UK, supposed to take six months, frequently take two years.' Worse still, and what no one spoke of, was that 'during this time, applicants are in limbo, unable to work or rent property.'
Josephine approved Rebaz's application, then packed her things, never to return. He was bussed with others to a hotel by the sea, where he spent a year in that 'limbo.' Each night he ate the rice and tomatoes (provided by ClearSprings plc (contract with the Home Office), and each day he practiced English and helped the other Sudanese. After a year, he gained 'Morton Compliance', when a doctor and a social worker 'determined' his actual age.
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The Long History of Domination
Early on, a kid asked Jason D. for his favourite historical time to live. He thought about this for sixty years and concluded he would have been miserable everywhere. The more he learned of his own time, the worse it appeared: with its corruption, inequality, stupidity and (barely) hidden violence. The more he learned of history, the more its brief periods of safety seemed not to be safe at all, but merely passing clouds of privilege. There really was no time and perhaps no place when he would have been anything other than an outsider, a stranger hiding in the shadows, face covered, a fuming and fearful objector. Jason wanted to tell that kid: humans never did learn to manage power. Never would. But he could not recall his name.
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On Lumping
Not all Americans are stupid, and not all Brits are mad. Not all Muslims are terrorists, nor are all Catholics inquisitors. Not all Jews support apartheid and not all Russians are alcoholics. This is lumping.
Importantly, not all rich people are like selfish children and not all men hate women. Not all Germans supported fascism but a lot of Americans do.
Some Ethiopians are aircraft engineers while others are not. Almost everyone, on occasion, is unknowingly unkind, though we try not to be.
So, to clarify: Not all swans are white, but all white swans are.
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Walking Out
The garden had a hawthorn hedge and the dog (Dag) had one eye. He was a stray who came begging at the window, emaciated and afraid, and never left. Over the years, he grew round and content, lazily patrolling his territory inside the hawthorn hedge, then sleeping.
When the weather worsened, he came with me in the van, as it now took all day to go anywhere and he was good company. Shops closed, there were frequent power cuts and there was much queuing, shouting and stealing. I saw one young man banging in desperation at a pharmacy window, the ATMs were broken, the roads flooded and - my particular tragedy as I was in pain - there were no dentists. If you called an ambulance, or even the fire service, they never came. The state's sub-contracted officials had disappeared. Dag waited patiently as we queued, and the strange little wink of his missing eye was just menacing enough to make my walk home safer.
Some still await their extreme weather. Even as they brace themselves for the terrifying impact - the one flood, the one storm, this heat wave - they should know it always ends with walking. People drive as far as they can, then drag their suitcases, then abandon their suitcases and then just stop.
From within our little compound, we tried to help the first arrivals who were hungry and afraid. But each day there were more, thickening into hundreds who camped outside the hawthorn hedge and gathered around fires. Their suffering was a continuous hum. Dag barked at them, but when the hedge burnt down people were suddenly in the house. They took everything and ate the dog. After that, I was walking too.
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Interpretation
I, John Pitney of Batford Parish, awoke in a dark windowless room and rubbed my face. It took a while, but I climbed upright, smoothed my hair and stumbled into the living room. A young woman sat on a sofa watching tv. She did not look at me, and I took the time to make coffee and properly awaken. But first I heard, and then saw, that the woman was softly weeping. I walked to a spot between her and the tv and asked if she was alright, and in response, she wiped her eyes and said, Look at this,' handing me a small letter written in a child's hand. 'Read it,' she commanded, covering her mouth with her hand in horror.
The child wrote about how much he missed her and what fun he was having with grandma. He hoped she got well soon so she could see his new car park, and that he loved her very much. I read the letter and looked at her, then I read it again, grasping for any kind of meaning.
'They're prisoners,' she explained, her face tortured by pain. 'Don't you see?'
Once more I scanned the letter but there was nothing in it to suggest anything other than a happy child wishing his mother good health and a quick return from hospital.
'Hang on,' I said. 'What is this place?'
'Durham,' said the woman, 'my husband took him there.'
'No. Not that. Where are we now?'
She regarded me with quizzical disapproval. 'We're trying to get them back!' she said, and suddenly fell forward, staggering and sobbing so that once more I looked dumbly at the letter, and then back at her.
'My little boy,' she said. 'My baby boy.'
'You!' A nurse approached. 'Don't be upsetting her.' The young woman snatched the letter from my hand.
'I didn't do anything.' I said. 'And I don't know where I am. Also, is this woman's son ok?'
The nurse sat the woman back on the sofa and comforted her, turning at last to me and whispered. 'Don't believe her.'
'But she believes.'
'Yes,' said the nurse, 'she does. As for you, you passed out on the street and the police bought you here.'
'Really? Why?'
'Because,' John Pitney, 'that's what you do every weekend.'
FAQs on the Rolling Apocalypse
Q 1. Will we be ok?
Q 2. How will I find food and medicine?
Q 3. Why won’t government help?
Q 4. Can I trust this person?
Q 5. There's no future, so what’s the point?
Q 6. What does my hope feel like?
Q 7. Why didn't I prepare?
Q 8. Was it always like this?
Q 9. Is it safe to drive?
Q 10. Who do I know who can help?
Q 11. Will it get better?
Q 12. How to live without a phone?
Q 13. How to answer the question: ‘Why should we feed you?'
Q 14. Can we ever go outside?
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Collective Addiction
Despite his better judgment, and in the full knowledge that he was hurting himself, Calvin continued to take the drug and would do anything to get it. Addiction has particular symptoms; one being the compulsive repetition of self-destructive behaviour.
Often, he wondered if it made any sense to say, of a culture or society in general, that it is collectively addicted? On its face, such a notion was absurd, mere analogy: individuals can be addicted, but societies are completely different. At most, he managed to conclude that in some ways, mass self-destructive behaviour resembled his own daily desperation, tumbling through the world and grasping. He made the same decisions over and again and saw that, as a society, and despite our better judgment, we compulsively pursue dirty consumerism, casino capitalism and the burning of fossil fuels in ways that are directly against our own interests. We also seem addicted to primitive and toxic forms of leadership, to inter-group conflict and chronic inequality, to obedience.
Ruefully, Calvin studied the list of symptoms for individual addiction in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, lV, where he found the following:
'Continued substance abuse despite damaging consequences
Inability to stop, compulsion, preoccupation, distorted thinking
Limit setting & promises to self and others regularly broken
Denial, irrationality, repeated relapse, remorse & guilt
Progressive, often fatal'
No mention of Collective Addiction, as neither Calvin, nor his world, had yet suffered enough.
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Elsewhere
The dinosaur's head come off, so Rebecca looked for her mother who was sitting on the bottom of the stairs, legs folded beneath her. Rebecca held out the two parts of the toy but her mother was weeping. Just then, grandma came over and ushered her away, but Rebecca saw the letter and knew it was from her father.
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Introduction to Relating (with Others)
In this 21st Century, the need to find and use words accurately is crucial. All too often we fail to communicate and the meaning slips away like sand, or we fall back to our own concerns, must state our own opinion or instinctively respond according to our own personal resentments. Here we demonstrate the importance of turn-taking in communication. Once, even babies could do this - and before they could talk - but it is more difficult for us today as we are more deeply polluted and confused. Consider the following seemingly ordinary conversation involving employees of Ecoland plc:
That morning Anna returned to work with a smile as she had not had a drink for a month. In the lobby she met 'dapper' Darren from Marketing who talked loudly about his commute and stank while she waited. When the pressure inside him eased, he asked: 'Are you back for good?'
Their eyes met briefly.
'I stayed in a house,' said Anna. 'It had lots of green. And a veranda.'
'I did see the video,' snapped Darren. 'I know all about the place.'
'I do as well. I mean, I do now. There's a general notion which I have seen,' Anna continued, 'and a strict regimen of ...'
Darren started talking again, right across her, though this time Anna kept going, so for a while they were talking over and at each other with no idea and less interest in what each was trying to say. As neither made much sense anyway - reflecting the usual mental health issues - this did not unduly concern them; nor indeed should it, as relating with others remains a challenge for us all.
Takeaways… Turn-taking in conversation avoids:
Talking at the same time
Communication breakdown &
Violence
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States of Nature
I am afraid, as there is no sense, no authority and no safety. The emergency services and the food are gone and all around is noise, theft and violence. Thomas Hobbes said in 1641, that in such 'a State of Nature...,' there is a 'war of all against all.' He got that from translating Thucydides' Civil War in Corcyra, written five hundred years before Christ, which recounts how they buried people alive in the city walls.
In a State of Nature, groupings rapidly emerge: familial, neighbourly, ethnic, religious, gangs and more. Hobbes called these 'defensive cooperatives,' and watched them compete with each other in the scarce environment. Groups range from strongly hierarchical and based on fear, to others that are more open, drawing their strength from a common understanding and a sharing of skills. When writing Lord of the Flies, William Golding read Hobbes. So that's Thucydides, Hobbes, Golding all the way down to me.
I have read about the State of Nature; but now it's here. As Boswell said, 'fear concentrates the mind wonderfully.' I am unaccustomed to being afraid, and woefully unprepared for what is coming.
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In Hiding
Marco grew up with a lot of other children. He was a quiet boy and one day, while engaged in a game of hide and seek with the other children, he found the perfect hiding place: behind the grandfather clock in the central hall. So concealed, he listened as they searched for him. Rikki kept shouting that the game was over, but Marco stayed behind the clock. The minutes passed, then an hour, and even though his legs were sore and the workers in the hall were alarmed, he just stood silently, spying on their chatter about his disappearance. Marco hid there so long he got hungry, so long that he heard the police arrive and then leave again, so long that he began to wonder how he would explain his absence. It was growing dark when his friend Sarah emerged into the hall calling his name. The doors swept open and then flapped shut behind her. She was weeping.
Without knowing why, as she turned around to fumble for the light switch, Marco stepped deftly out from behind the clock and took three long strides into the centre of the hall. The light flicked on and Sarah cried out. 'Where have you been?!' Then she ran towards him.
'I couldn't find anyone,' he said as she hugged him, 'so I went in the woods but I got lost.'
The children were delighted to see him safe, the grownups too, but later they gathered round and told him off. Marco repeated his story about getting lost, but was informed in the clearest terms that if it happened again, he would have to leave. One worker snapped that no one believed a word Marcus said but another leaned in close and spoke with kindness. 'Do it with words,' he advised. 'That's the best way to tell others what's going on.'
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Solo Messenger
A favourite was Victor Serge, the revolutionary, who declared himself always in search of 'cheap lodgings and a good library.' That always made her smile. All buzz-cut hair and dark glasses, Jessie B. knew every part of the city and all the paths in the wood. Even if a bridge was closed and guarded, she could get through, always moving forward and quickening her pace. She learned a lot from Michael, but was pleased he was gone, as now she could work freelance and alone. In her bag was all she needed and in her head were was a list of great messengers of history, stretching all the way back. If she had a horse, she would be light cavalry, roaming and nomadic, living off the land and suddenly appearing at a distant location. She liked to look back and dissect her very first impressions of other people as she found, buried within those moments, the seeds of disappointments to come. Her very first thought about Micheal was - if she was honest - that his body was long and languid, so he might not be able to keep up. Perhaps she should have listened to herself more closely. She often felt that.
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The Cycle of Hierarchy
The pattern by which hierarchies of power rise and fall repeats itself across history in a most amusing way. As Polybius pointed out two thousand years ago, it is a simple cycle, dumbly repeated across time amid suffering at every turn. You see it in empires, armies, governments, institutions, businesses, offices, teams and families and it's always been like that. At first, hierarchy emerges 'naturally' (i.e. a lot) as WE need special skills and the division of labour, so we agree to give up some freedoms to survive. Then again, and 'naturally', comes the corruption, the defensive separation and the growing incompetence of elites, followed by their 'natural' demise.
'Rome fell,' Machiavelli concluded; 'So what hope is there for the rest of us?' Laughter? The Cycle of Hierarchy spins and we never did learn to manage it well. Now we have no time to learn.
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The Bends
'I'm leaving.'
'You're twelve years old.'
'I've been spending more time with Dave Fletcher from school. His family are good and they have cats called Meat and Two Veg. Mrs Fletcher says it's fine.'
'You asked her if you could move in?'
'Yes. One night she made dinner and afterwards I took my plate to the sink, as we do. Then I thanked her. She burst out crying. Now I can do no wrong.'
'We would save money, not having to feed you.'
'That's right. If you give me half those savings, I'll give it to her.'
'You'll get bored.'
'Perhaps.'
But I never did. One glorious summer with a 'normal' family building wooden planes and playing football in the garden until Dave went back to school.
I found a job for room and board in the country, cleaning stables and tack. I slept in a hay loft and I ate in the kitchen, though later the police came to ask why I wasn't at school. I told them I didn't know.
'I am learning about horses,' I offered hopefully, and went on to describe how Ingrid and I would run the two racing ponies across the moor in the evening, headlong and waving our hats. There was no need to worry. I was living like a King.
They smiled and turned away as they spoke at their radios, then took me to a boarding school that was like a prison. Here they cut my hair, taught me to sit still and even, after much resistance, to read.
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Crowded
In a hall with hundreds of people, McPherson must decide whether to stay and help, or get away. Luckily, he is able to convene, in his head, an endless and everyday Policy Committee peopled by: himself as a hungry child, himself as a roving teenager and him again as a pretend adult. Also present at these crowded and sometimes raucous meetings are his absent mother and father, his ultimately disappointing college lecturer and the nurse who helped him after the accident. A former lover is a regular attender, as is a thoughtful friend from his restaurant days. Finally, there is Leo Tolstoy, a dead brother who never stood a chance and an unpleasant boy the young McPherson had fought with many years before. So, when he asks himself, 'What to do? Leave or stay?' they all jump in, talking across each other and waving their sausage fingers. Then the grownup McPherson says we don’t have all day and they speak more clearly, exchanging and gathering points of view, trying to understand. Only then do they agree. 'What we should do is stay, at least for now.'
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Mass Exit
An important moment in the Roman Republic was the Secessio Plebis of 494 BCE, when the plebs first used a particular tactic of resistance, at once creative and revelatory. The entire plebeian class walked out of the city and camped on a hill beyond its walls. Here, according to Livy, 'with no officer to direct them... they stayed quietly... there was no violence.'
This caused 'panic' in Rome and 'everything came to a standstill.' As the days passed, the patricians were unable to conduct business, defend their property or resist the opportunism of neighbouring cities. Under growing pressure and with the citizenry refusing to return, the patricians at last consented to an extraordinary 'class-based' innovation – that of the Tribunate. The Tribunes of the People were elected by the plebs alone, could not be patricians and had the power to veto any policy that went against the interest of the plebeian class. In effect, the Tribunate were constitutionally empowered to protect the plebs from the patricians and to counterbalance the inherent elite bias of institutions.
With the Tribunate to be enshrined in law, the plebs returned to the city. Of course the patricians reneged on this agreement, requiring further mass walkouts, but in his Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli commended the real political achievements of these events, highlighting their symbolic importance. He saw the Secessio Plebis as a demonstration of collective power where the people were physically present and visible, both to the patricians and to themselves. Such a mass exit is, he said, 'at once a refusal to play and a dramatic demonstration.'
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Adaptation
'We have to move,' said Aleka. 'If we stay here, we're finished.'
Martin lay on the ground at her feet exhausted, an animal sucking air at the end of a hunt, eyes wide but no longer able to run. His cheek felt the cold earth, but he just lay there.
'Come on. You have to get up.'
'I can't.'
'Martin,' she began sternly. 'You cannot do this now.'
But he had grown up in a time of peace, with music they all listened to, with money to spend. His house had central heating, a flush toilet, running hot water and lights he could turn on any time he liked. Martin had a life-plan - to be a dentist, with a house and family - and had carried it out.
'Get up for Christ's sakes.'
He felt her push at him. He had been good at sports, and later, a member of a gym, but now there was nothing in him at all. Just the cold earth.
'You better get up now or we are all going to die. Up! Now!'
So he tried again.
At last, Aleka said loudly, ‘Maybe we should leave him. They'll shoot him and he won't even care.'
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