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Ah, good times.
The GCC. The Good Conscience Convention. This is the time of year where all of us Good Consciences leave the shoulders of our earthly mortal hosts and convene to update our status, research new psychological initiatives, keep in touch, and generally pat each other on the back.
Some of us are better at our jobs than others.
Over there, the GCs of the powerful politicians and heads of the major corporations are seated in a circle, chain-smoking and wide-eyed, staring silently into space. Our hearts go out to them.
You can’t help but feel responsible when your host gives in to the dark side. Sure, there are all kinds of graphs to show us that no matter what we do, there is a bigger picture of morality at play. There are platitudes, equations and conjectures about how all of our hosts are fifty per cent evil so defeat is inevitable at least half the time.
Try telling that to GCs of the abused kids or the gangsters. They dream of fifty per cent. They hope for ten and consider themselves lucky if they get even that. They get all the support we can give. They take notes furiously, trying to stay positive.
There are symposiums about simple mental tricks that a GC can implement to push their host towards the light. There are panels from successful GCs giving tips and smiling advice. There are debates on the nature of evil.
There are pacts signed here as well. GCs are allowed to help each other. It gets to be a difficult process, though, as there are limitations. The banding together that we did in the early sixties was outlawed by heaven as a violation of the Free Will Act of Year 0. There was a small rebellion but in time, the Big Guy was proven right and we shook our heads.
Every boom has a bust, they say, and the unbridled, unlimited happiness-seeking of the 60s led to the excess of the 70s which brought about the moral depression of the 80s and early 90s. We had hope for a natural resurgence but in a post-911 world, we’re still reeling.
We thought it was our turn since the Dark Age BC insurgence was condemned but never properly equaled by our side. All those witch-burnings had never been avenged. We thought that free love, peaceful protests, mind-expanding drugs, and radical anarchistic notions of personal freedom were the way to go. Now we realize we were just thinking like the enemy and trying to fight fire with fire. Stupid.
Things are still out of wack and oscillating wildly. We’ve learned our lesson. We need to shape our hosts and push them gently. Manipulating them to be good all the time is like putting a piece of chocolate cake in a goldfish bowl. They eat themselves to death.
Also, whatever we successfully lobby to the Holy Congress to be allowed to do, the Bad Consciences are also granted permission to do.
There are panels where bad consciences give their side of things so that we can get an insight into their psychology. It’s a little unreliable because they’re probably lying their asses off and having a lark with us but hey, whatever we can glean will be useful. That’s the hope, anyway. They’ve signed NDAs and No-Harm Treaty Pacts. They wear whatever they feel like and smirk constantly. All the male BCs have goatees.
In between seminars, I catch up with old friends.
The whole Good Conscience Convention is held in the west wing of the Heaven Convention Center. The walls here are white. We’re all in our robes. The cafeteria is awesome.
I spent half an hour talking to a few of the younger GCs before heading off to a Fuzzy Concept Ideals Panel featuring Richard Branson’s GC and BC in a dual address with a Q&A afterwards. It’s a hot topic so I should get there early.
tags
The GCC. The Good Conscience Convention. This is the time of year where all of us Good Consciences leave the shoulders of our earthly mortal hosts and convene to update our status, research new psychological initiatives, keep in touch, and generally pat each other on the back.
Some of us are better at our jobs than others.
Over there, the GCs of the powerful politicians and heads of the major corporations are seated in a circle, chain-smoking and wide-eyed, staring silently into space. Our hearts go out to them.
You can’t help but feel responsible when your host gives in to the dark side. Sure, there are all kinds of graphs to show us that no matter what we do, there is a bigger picture of morality at play. There are platitudes, equations and conjectures about how all of our hosts are fifty per cent evil so defeat is inevitable at least half the time.
Try telling that to GCs of the abused kids or the gangsters. They dream of fifty per cent. They hope for ten and consider themselves lucky if they get even that. They get all the support we can give. They take notes furiously, trying to stay positive.
There are symposiums about simple mental tricks that a GC can implement to push their host towards the light. There are panels from successful GCs giving tips and smiling advice. There are debates on the nature of evil.
There are pacts signed here as well. GCs are allowed to help each other. It gets to be a difficult process, though, as there are limitations. The banding together that we did in the early sixties was outlawed by heaven as a violation of the Free Will Act of Year 0. There was a small rebellion but in time, the Big Guy was proven right and we shook our heads.
Every boom has a bust, they say, and the unbridled, unlimited happiness-seeking of the 60s led to the excess of the 70s which brought about the moral depression of the 80s and early 90s. We had hope for a natural resurgence but in a post-911 world, we’re still reeling.
We thought it was our turn since the Dark Age BC insurgence was condemned but never properly equaled by our side. All those witch-burnings had never been avenged. We thought that free love, peaceful protests, mind-expanding drugs, and radical anarchistic notions of personal freedom were the way to go. Now we realize we were just thinking like the enemy and trying to fight fire with fire. Stupid.
Things are still out of wack and oscillating wildly. We’ve learned our lesson. We need to shape our hosts and push them gently. Manipulating them to be good all the time is like putting a piece of chocolate cake in a goldfish bowl. They eat themselves to death.
Also, whatever we successfully lobby to the Holy Congress to be allowed to do, the Bad Consciences are also granted permission to do.
There are panels where bad consciences give their side of things so that we can get an insight into their psychology. It’s a little unreliable because they’re probably lying their asses off and having a lark with us but hey, whatever we can glean will be useful. That’s the hope, anyway. They’ve signed NDAs and No-Harm Treaty Pacts. They wear whatever they feel like and smirk constantly. All the male BCs have goatees.
In between seminars, I catch up with old friends.
The whole Good Conscience Convention is held in the west wing of the Heaven Convention Center. The walls here are white. We’re all in our robes. The cafeteria is awesome.
I spent half an hour talking to a few of the younger GCs before heading off to a Fuzzy Concept Ideals Panel featuring Richard Branson’s GC and BC in a dual address with a Q&A afterwards. It’s a hot topic so I should get there early.
tags