Claire – The Cure for Fear of the New – 065

Dear Byron, and all fellow conspirators,

You have assigned me Fear of the New — a curious choice, since I pride myself on an enthusiasm for novelty in most forms (though I do reserve the right to recoil from certain fashions). Still, I accept the challenge, and in the manner of Mr. Swift, I present my proposal:

Let us require that every citizen, upon reaching the age of majority, adopt a new invention into their daily life on pain of exile. And by invention, I do not mean a fresh ribbon colour or a slightly improved teapot. No — I mean something wholly unfamiliar, potentially alarming, and preferably incomprehensible at first glance.

To ensure equity, the novelty will be assigned at random: a farmer may be given an automaton to milk his cows; a magistrate might be tasked with governing through a device that transmits voices without bodies; a poet may be forced to compose with symbols she has never seen before. The more resistant the subject, the more radical the novelty.

Of course, a Bureau of Novelty will be established to enforce compliance. Inspectors will appear unannounced to ensure the innovation is being used, and not merely hidden in a cupboard. Those who fail will be sent to an island where nothing changes at all — the food, the weather, the conversation — until they beg to return to the unpredictable mainland.

This may seem draconian, but after a generation or two, humanity’s instinctive shudder at the new will fade into a thrill of curiosity. The future will no longer be something to dread, but something to look forward to — and perhaps even to chase.

Yours in perpetual novelty,

— Claire