Model: predicting the future as the past becomes non-linear

One can reduce the speculative data to three types of substance effect (elim- ination of aggressiveness, emotional inhibition + brain performance, and cognitive enhancers), with three different types of individual effects (schiz- ophrenia, individual personality deterioration, and addition with its known consequences of the individual). However, there is a tendency underlining the social consequences as the paradigm of ‘conform or be held outside the gates’ emerges from all the three stories. Being outcast as result of refusing the use of the drug (or of obtaining the consequences it gives) is smoothly weaving the column of social effects of the selected narratives on Table 1.

reality. The closest the juxtaposition of model versus reality, the nearer the ultimate consequences of the dystopia are of becoming a fact of life.

Indeed, there are other variables not being taken in account in this ap- proach, as in all models, as reality, physical or social, has a complex nature which is ungraspable by approximations but the key in valid models is that well-made approximations can make reality perceivable and forecastable, something that has been proven once and again. We propose this model can be one of such approximations, probing the avenue to come but also the present and even the past.

In this particular case, the situation is the use of drugs on children and stu- dents to obtain conformity of behavior and increment educational success.

Since it would be impossible in the scope of this chapter to approach all situ- ations, we focus on the case of Ritalin. At present, parents have two options for altering their child conduct when presented with a scenario of a turbu- lent and/or misbehaved child in school context: [1] to administer Ritalin, that is, to opt for a chemical solution; [2] to endeavor in a more long-term human intervention, such as dialogue, familiar intervention, which is a non chemi- cal solution. The school can also propose two scenarios, one of conformity, where children are all expected to behave with no further do and comply with what is requested, or one of empathy, where the school accepts as log- ic and inevitable that not all humans are equal and have different paths to become socially apt, to behave well without being normalized.

This choice for empathy as oppose to conformity in the model is not casual.

While all values can be questioned in democratic societies, it is accepted in such societies that the majority cannot decide without acknowledging and respecting the minorities. And it is empathy, not conformity, the human characteristic which allows for this democratic and political value to be as- sumed and integrated.

Finally, the model is completed with determinants, which were also present in the Marquez-Ramos and Mourelle model [5]. In our case, the determi- nants can be familiar, social, economic or other parameters that are suited

for analyzing the reasons behind the choices on the the parents and schools make. For example, choosing the chemical solution could be motivated by economic reasons, as the non chemical solutions could delay the child’s suc- cess and parents could not cope with an ‘administered’ solution. Eventually, though not in absolute, this could lead to conformity and the school accept- ing the situation in order to maintain peace in the classroom. This type of situation is exemplified of Figure 3.

Figure 3: Proposed Social model to apply reduction ad dystopia, based on the Marquez- -Ramos and Mourelle Model [5].

Nevertheless, that does not mean that Economy as a determinant always implies the choice of the chemical solution. For example, the parents may consider that the future professional success of the child is dependent of the capacity to question and think outside the box, as many companies also consider this as essential trait in their employees, and opt for a non- chemi- cal solution that will not erase, even that temporarily, such characteristic of the child. As such, the model is not biased regarding the determinants and comprises the several possibilities.

To use the reductio ad dystopia in the model we shall use the data select- ed from the stories. As all approximations bear error, either in minor or higher degree, so does collecting data from creative environments such as a literature piece. As scavengers, we probe the stories, aiming at reducing the creative and human elements into simple and mutually exclusive quali- ties. Despite the amazing questions raised at Beyond Bedlam, Metaquine and Fast Times at Fairmont High, focusing on the problem we are studying, the

data suitable for the model and the use of Ritalin in children in the context of simple misbehavior, we obtained the data displayed in Table 2, which is juxtapose to the model, without the determinants column.

Table 2: Data collected from the selected stories within the proposed model

Story Individual Options Individual

Consequences Social Scenarios

Beyond Bedlam

Aggressive Schizophrenia Conformity||Acceptance

Non-aggressive Non schizophrenia Freedom of thought||

Pariah

Metaquine

Emotional inhibition Higher brain

performance Cyberaddition Emotions non

inhibited

Higher integrity of

personality Non conformity

Fast Times at Fairmont High

Higher memory capacity

Addition/School

success Social status

Normal memory capacity

Drug free/ School

failure Social outcast

The premise was that, if the dystopian scenario came to a reasonably re- semble the ‘reality’ scenarios, then the dystopian consequences would be an expected future – and that is clearly happening. Although the blunt re- sult may not be schizophrenia, the abusive use of Ritalin in order to obtain conformity of behavior in the classroom or at home and overall acceptance by class peers, teachers and family, can lead to severe consequences in the mental state on the long term.

Further, when focusing on the third story, Fast Times at Fairmont High, the juxtaposition of using the drug to guarantee the expected student behav- ior is too close to comfort. One may point out that Ritalin is not meant to enhance brain capacity but the issue in the story can be broken down to a simple colloquial phrase: My way or the highway. Use it, behave, or get out of here.

The dystopian scenario that seems further away from the present is the one of Metaquine, as the cyberaddition is not yet a social consequence. But can

we truly say, as the resulting cybernetic experience becomes more immer- sive, through virtual and augmented reality, and as, and with good reasons, videogames are becoming a more educational and cultural tool, that such consequences are a far off future?

In fact, what one can truly say is that many aspects of these dystopias are too close to our neighborhood for us to feel comfortable, whether you con- sider time or space for vicinity. Moreover, if that is the case, what can we say about us as citizens, as parents, as teachers, if we condone or at least turn our eyes in other directions as the use of drugs to deal with miscon- duct is unofficially accepted?

Democracy lives through the health, mental, social and physical of its cit- izens and by acknowledging them as individual entities with multifacets.

Democracy lives through the patterns it establishes for how the weakest of the weak should be treated. Democracy lives through the future, as it takes the present to ensure dignity and respect to all human beings. It comes to a sad irony that centuries of democratic fight to establish children’s rights would collapse through some pills – not in the name of freedom but in the name of quietness.