'Ten Years From Now' - A Review

I only occasionally visit ‘The National Organisation For Marriage’ (or ‘NOM’ as they un-ironically call themselves) the same way I occasionally follow ‘The UK Independence Party’ – because it’s a scavenger-hunt for hypocrisy. There is no such thing as a wrong opinion, yet there are bizarre opinions suspended only by flawed logic. And the only way to rid society of said opinions is by exposing the flaws in this logic through critical discourse.

Normally I wouldn’t foul my blog with this nonsense, but NOM has recently penned aliterary work that they’ve shared with the world. Since my blog is supposed to be about art, I may as well review this piece.

‘Ten Years From Now’ is a dystopian flash-fiction told from the first-person perspective of a concerned parent (read: author surrogate) whose sixteen year old daughter has been suspended from school for apparently bullying a transgender student. This could be an interesting tale about how a parent has to explain that the mind is a separate entity from the body, yet the parent does not want to jeopardise his relationship with his daughter. Instead, it’s a context-less spiel about “kids these days.”

The opening shows signs of promise, yet throws its cards on the table by using air-quotes in the sentence “he has chosen to "identify" as a "she"” meaning that the protagonist is transphobic and believes his daughter to be right in her protests, thus making her suspension unlawful.

This would make sense if there was some sort of fictional law introduced, decreeing that those who self-identify as female are immediately permitted to use the female facilities on-campus. Instead, the story draws to current events by saying that “the school district adopted the Ontario, Canada construct.” Said construct only decrees that there are five genders. It does not decree that males are allowed to use female toilets. The logic behind trans pupils being allowed to use facilities assigned to the gender they identify as is that these trans pupils have appealed to an authority to receive explicit permission. Again, if there was a fictional law introduced that changed this, then fine. But there isn’t one. 

The story also suggests that this trans pupil is only pretending to identify as a female so he can spy on the women changing without repercussions. This would make the daughter justified in her protest – but the story is not explicit. It needs to either refute or embrace this possibility, as it’s too strong to leave open.

It’s not even said what stage of the transitional process the pupil is in. Does this pupil still dress like a man? Has this pupil applied to have her passport changed? Has this pupil had any surgery or hormone-treatment? Has the protagonist’s daughter protested against a boy in lipstick, or a woman without breasts?

In fact, if gender “is no longer particularly relevant in the public schools” then that means toilets would be different. If gender is now a binary construct, then toilers surely would not be split into ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ – particularly if, according to the story, the government has now eliminated the expressions ‘boy’ and ‘girl.’ This means toilets would no longer be assigned to a gender, and thus would have to be re-built. I guess every toilet would be contained within some sort of cubicle, as would the showers and changing-rooms.

Thus, the trans pupil would not have been using the wrong toilet and therefore the daughter would have no reason whatsoever to protest. The conflict this whole story is based around is null and void.

Need I go on? The story’s logic has collapsed in on itself within the first four paragraphs.

For a story set ten years in the future, not a single ‘futuristic vibe’ is present. The only hint that we’re in the future is the vagueness of the statement “I read an article on my device.” This probably just refers to a phone or tablet, but there’s the possibility he’s reading on a holographic projection or perhaps cyber-vision goggles. Aside from this, the piece doesn’t feel even vaguely futuristic. The story even says that the school has adopted “the Facebook model,” meaning the world hasn’t moved onto a new plain of communication. The world depicted here is a vacuum where only marriage appears to have significantly changed anything – where if we look to the past ten years, our society has been radically changed by technology, the economy, conflict, and transitions in political parties. These are extremely large constructs. At the start of the story, it appears that changes in marriage laws have only had a partial impact on this teenager’s first-world existence. It’s only when the story draws back at the conclusion to reveal that the world is a barren wasteland of poverty and drugs because the definition of marriage has changed.

Which leads me neatly to the ending. At the last moment, the story forgoes the basic ‘show don’t tell’ rule to dump a vast amount of exposition without any explanation.

The story boldly claims with no justification that “Teenage drug use, criminality, truancy and suicide were on the rise, while educational attainment is declining.” How? “More people are living in poverty than any other time in my life.” How? How is a change in marriage laws more damaging to the economy than the stock market crash of 2008? It’s possible that this law has created a domino-effect, but that effect needs to be explained within the story. And it needs to be explained in a way that doesn’t have our protagonist quote a Fox News article. The line: “I read an article on my device” suggests that the protagonist merely read a random article, rather than “I read an official report” or “I read a government study.” And it’s because of this random article that apparently the world is falling apart. The protagonist has read the article, so therefore the article is true. I read, therefore I am.

This summarises the whole problem with the piece. We read what the protagonist is thinking, and therefore it’s supposed to be true within the world created. He says that Christian Unions are being disbanded all over the country, therefore it must be so. The possibility that the protagonist could be mistaken, jaded, or a bigot is never bought into question – which is a huge flaw considering that, like it or not, this protagonist is expressing a view only present in a minority. An average reader will be quick to dismiss his views because they are not the norm. In order to make us sympathise with this characters unorthodox views, he must be presented with more distance and more characterisation.

We don’t know the person speaking. How old is he? Where does he live? What’s his job? Does he have a wife? Because the story is so short, and the story attempts to cram so many ideas without explaining them, we have no sense of character. There is no room for character. I can only assume he’s an author surrogate because there is so little characterisation. There is absolutely no context here, and as such I’m inclined to immediately disagree with the person speaking because I have no clear mental picture and no sense of time or place.

Finally, the story goes as far to say that the President him/herself is planning enormous changes, and as a result taxes would be raised. Never in the history of politics has a president outright said that taxes are being raised – and this will never happen because it would be career-suicide. Never, ever will the president step out in front of the nation and say: “Hey, there’s a huge reform in healthcare, education, and law-enforcement coming up…and guess that’s paying for it? IT’S YOU!!” This is the sort of vision only conjured up by a writer with no idea about politics or even reality.

So, in conclusion: I wouldn’t try to submit this for publication, guys. Regardless of the extremely flawed views presented, this is just a really bad piece of prose – failing on every single level possible. Stick to the political rhetoric…