Problem
"The Little Black Box," Philip K. Dick Analysis:
The story tells of the persecution of Mercerites-a humanist organization built around the cultivation of empathy-as a dangerous, subversive movement. Strikingly, Mercer's message (p. 31) is simply that we are here, and we are together, and that no-one is coming to save us-and, thus, perhaps that we must become our own saviors. Use the above discussion of ubuntu to make sense of why this message is a dangerous message to an authoritarian, repressive government; why solidarity and empathy are already a threat to repressive societies and authoritarian governments, and why individualism can be a source of stability and control for repressive societies and authoritarian governments.