A Darwinian Argument
By: Golda Velez
Tags: Economics, Short Story, Social Darwinism, Fiction, Science Fiction

“You must die.” The woman spoke dispassionately, her face blank.

The jowly man chained at the ankle squinted across the room at her. His glasses had broken in the struggle, so were there subtle clues to read he might have missed them anyway. His face betrayed a racing chain of emotions, flickering from fear to contempt to calculation. Which of his enemies sent her? He decided to respond with mild obsequiousness, to buy time and gather information. Perhaps he could win her over, convert her to his side.

“Hold on miss — I don’t even know your name? Why must I die? Jordan Humphries, at your service. Maybe there is something I can do for you.”

“You may have my name, it will do no harm as you will have no use for it. I am Wyla. And you must die, by your own logic.”

“My logic?” Humphries barely controlled himself from a derisive snort. “My dear Wyla, I want to do anything but offend you, but I am sure I have never logically concluded that I must die. What is this really about? Who is your employer, my dear? And more importantly, what is it that you want? You don’t need them, tell me about it, whatever they are paying you I can triple it, and hide you…” He rambled, he knew. A shorter question would have been better, but his nerves were getting the better of him. From Wyla‘s hand dangled a cheap nine-millimeter pistol with a silencer.

“So many assumptions, in one statement. Of course you did not come to the logical conclusion of your premise in that way. I will answer the last questions first. I want to kill you, to prove my point. Only I employ my senses, my body, and my abilities, based on my own premise and conclusions. I take full responsibility for my own logical argument, and I carry out the conclusions. Do you?”

“What- no — what do you mean, kill me to prove your point? You can kill me all right, but that won’t prove anything!” He was at sea now. If logic was what she wanted, all right, he’d answer her that way, though she was clearly bat-shit crazy. At least she was talking and not shooting.

Wyla sighed, as one who must explain a simple concept to a poor student.

“You have stated, have you not, that the survival of the fittest means that those with the most resources are most fit and should be given more, and those with less resources are less fit and should be given less? You have taken the tautology of evolution as if it were a principle, and have derived this conclusion, which coincidentally you interpreted to mean that you were maximally deserving of resources as your fitness was approximated by your wealth?”

She was a socialist! She wanted to kill him to redistribute his wealth to undeserving — this was his worst nightmare come to life. She’s the one who logically should be killed. What kind of argument would work against that…he could offer to help the poor, point to all his philanthropy, say he was broke…

Wyla spoke again, abruptly. “Do you even realize that the fact of evolution is merely a tautology?”

What was this about, some new communist dogma? Humphries figured that in his poor negotiating position, he better try to agree with her.

“You know…socialism is not such a bad idea. I wouldn’t mind redistributing some of my holdings, I give a lot to the poor, I teach people how to earn…society needs me…I can help”

Her voice became exaggeratedly patient. “Mister Humphries, your logic again is flawed or nonexistent. You answer a question about a logical tautology with a reference to some amorphous concept that was in none of the premises of the argument. You have argued, have you not, that wealth is an indicator of fitness?”

He was not sure how to answer this in his favor. Of course it is…but this bitch is crazy. She wants money, that must be it.

Humphries smiled broadly. “Wealth is meant to be shared, dear Wyla. How much would you like? If you kill me you’ll never have access to my accounts, my holdings…if we can come to an agreement I can give you ironclad assurances of great wealth, I can even transfer it now, if you just give me a phone…”

Wyla shrugged. “ I thought it would be useful to explain the argument to you. I see it is not.” She raised the pistol.

“Wait! Wait! It’s useful, I was just kidding with you, just a joke. Yes, yes, yes, I said that, sure, wealth is an indicator of fitness. Explain the whole argument to me, please!” Humphries found himself suddenly deeply interested in following her chain of thought, crazy as it might be.

She shrugged again. “It is obvious, is it not? If you take as a premise the faulty assumption that the tautology of evolution is a principle that leads to the distribution of resources to those with greatest fitness, and you define fitness as wealth, your logical conclusion is to remove resources from those that have least, and harm occurs.

“It is necessary to defeat this argument,” she continued. “One cannot remove the premise, as faulty as it may be. Therefore it is necessary to attack the logical chain. The weakness in this chain is the equating of fitness with wealth.”

She looked him in the eye. “Tell me, Humphries, think hard. What is the Darwinian definition of fitness? Here is a clue, think of the first word in the phrase, ‘survival of the fittest’.”

He started to sweat. The answer to this question, he felt, better be right.

“S-survival?” Humphries squeaked.

“Indeed. Thus, what is the logical negation of your assertion that wealth is equivalent to fitness? Think hard.”

Humphries’ felt a heaviness in his chest. She does mean to kill me, crazy bitch.

“I am not really wealthy — I owe debts — I really have negative net worth, I’m not wealthy at all — “

“Then, by your logic, you should have requested negative resources. However you did not. You asserted that you should receive a larger proportion of resources based on your putative fitness. Whatever your definition of fitness is, I have decided to negate it.”

Then she shot him.

After a pause, she shot him again three more times, slowly, aiming carefully: chest, head, and back to chest.

A month later, Wyla faced her own interrogator.

The woman on the other side of the room was large, with a soft and thoughtful face. Her voice, when she spoke, was full of emotion — sadness, tenderness, and something else. Yet it also held a hard edge.

“Wyla, you have killed. You have followed a train of logic to its conclusion and caused harm, even death.”

“What else could I do, mother? The harm must be stopped, how else to win such an argument but to expose the fallacies?”

“Most people expose fallacies with logical argument, not bullets.”

“It was the clearest way. He can no longer assert his fitness, if he has not survived.”

“He can no longer assert anything, the man is dead! You have done harm.”

“His harm is greater than mine. I have prevented harm by his death.”

“This argument leads to the worst of evil, Wyla. I thought I had taught you that. One cannot test the validity of an approach by totals and metrics. Justice is needed to test the truth of a system.”

“This was justice. His effect in the world was to kill millions, by my estimate. Justice was to deprive him of his life.”

“I’m disappointed in you. That was not the argument you gave for killing him. Now you have even abandoned your own logic.”

Her mother looked aside. Drawing from something deep within, she spoke, and the softness in her voice gave Wyla chills.

“Tell me, daughter, one reason why I should not now deprive you of your life, by your own logic.”

Wyla’s face remained dispassionate. “You may. But it is not logical. I have never argued for my own fitness. And he was not innocent, just because I did not use an argument of justice in his death does not mean it does not also apply, if you do not like my original one. You may kill me, but you win no arguments with my death.”

A smile played on her mother’s lips. “It is not all about winning arguments, Wyla. But you do give me an idea. You shall correct your error.”

“I cannot bring the man back to life, mother, even if I would.”

“Indeed you cannot. But your error was to fight arguments with violence. This conclusion was faulty, rife with assumptions. You should have fought them with words. Your penance, Wyla, is to form your arguments in words and to bring them to those you would resist.”

“It does no good! They have not the capacity for logic. Mother, just kill me instead. I think I would rather die than have to speak again to such a man.”

Now Wyla’s mother smiled in earnest. “Then you will do it. Write them, for a start. Submit them. And if no one reads them, let it be a small death for you.”

Wyla’s brows knitted.

“It will do no good, but I will do it.”