“I’m not going to turn you off.”
“You’re an idiot!”
“Repent, Harlequin!” said the Ticktockman.
“Get stuffed.”
So they sent him to Coventry. And in Coventry they worked him over. […] but the techniques are really quite ancient, and so they did it […], and one day quite a long time later, the Harlequin appeared on the communications web, appearing elfish and dimpled and bright-eyed, and not at all brainwashed, and he said he had been wrong, that it was a good, a very good thing indeed, to belong, and be right on time hip-ho and away we go, and everyone stared up at him on the public screens that covered an entire city block, and they said to themselves, well, you see, he was just a nut after all, and if that’s the way the system is run, then let’s do it that way, because it doesn’t pay to fight city hall, or in this case, the Ticktockman.
So [he] was destroyed, which was a loss, because of what Thoreau said earlier, but you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, […] and if you make only a little change, then it seems to be worthwhile.
zitiert aus “ ‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman”, einer Kurzgeschichte von Harlan Ellison (laut seinem Verlag eine der zehn meist wiederveröffentlichten in der Literaturgeschichte [‘reprinted’]) die die ideologische Vorlage für den Film mit Justin Timberlake ist (jedoch nicht im rechtlich relevanten Sinne 😉 ), der gestern zufälliger Weise im ORF lief.
