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The Mold of Yancy
162 pages, Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1955
63 people want to read
About the author
Philip K. Dick
1,989 books22.7k followersPhilip Kindred Dick was a prolific American science fiction author whose work has had a lasting impact on literature, cinema, and popular culture. Known for his imaginative narratives and profound philosophical themes, Dick explored the nature of reality, the boundaries of human identity, and the impact of technology and authoritarianism on society. His stories often blurred the line between the real and the artificial, challenging readers to question their perceptions and beliefs.
Raised in California, Dick began writing professionally in the early 1950s, publishing short stories in various science fiction magazines. He quickly developed a distinctive voice within the genre, marked by a fusion of science fiction concepts with deep existential and psychological inquiry. Over his career, he authored 44 novels and more than 100 short stories, many of which have become classics in the field.
Recurring themes in Dick's work include alternate realities, simulations, corporate and government control, mental illness, and the nature of consciousness. His protagonists are frequently everyday individuals—often paranoid, uncertain, or troubled—caught in surreal and often dangerous circumstances that force them to question their environment and themselves. Works such as Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and A Scanner Darkly reflect his fascination with perception and altered states of consciousness, often drawing from his own experiences with mental health struggles and drug use.
One of Dick’s most influential novels is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which served as the basis for Ridley Scott’s iconic film Blade Runner. The novel deals with the distinction between humans and artificial beings and asks profound questions about empathy, identity, and what it means to be alive. Other adaptations of his work include Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, and The Man in the High Castle, each reflecting key elements of his storytelling—uncertain realities, oppressive systems, and the search for truth. These adaptations have introduced his complex ideas to audiences well beyond the traditional readership of science fiction.
In the 1970s, Dick underwent a series of visionary and mystical experiences that had a significant influence on his later writings. He described receiving profound knowledge from an external, possibly divine, source and documented these events extensively in what became known as The Exegesis, a massive and often fragmented journal. These experiences inspired his later novels, most notably the VALIS trilogy, which mixes autobiography, theology, and metaphysics in a narrative that defies conventional structure and genre boundaries.
Throughout his life, Dick faced financial instability, health issues, and periods of personal turmoil, yet he remained a dedicated and relentless writer. Despite limited commercial success during his lifetime, his reputation grew steadily, and he came to be regarded as one of the most original voices in speculative fiction. His work has been celebrated for its ability to fuse philosophical depth with gripping storytelling and has influenced not only science fiction writers but also philosophers, filmmakers, and futurists.
Dick’s legacy continues to thrive in both literary and cinematic spheres. The themes he explored remain urgently relevant in the modern world, particularly as technology increasingly intersects with human identity and governance. The Philip K. Dick Award, named in his honor, is presented annually to distinguished works of science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. His writings have also inspired television series, academic studies, and countless homages across media.
Through his vivid imagination and unflinching inquiry into the nature of existence, Philip K. Dick redefined what science fiction could achieve. His work continues to challenge and inspire, offering timeless insights into the human condition a
Raised in California, Dick began writing professionally in the early 1950s, publishing short stories in various science fiction magazines. He quickly developed a distinctive voice within the genre, marked by a fusion of science fiction concepts with deep existential and psychological inquiry. Over his career, he authored 44 novels and more than 100 short stories, many of which have become classics in the field.
Recurring themes in Dick's work include alternate realities, simulations, corporate and government control, mental illness, and the nature of consciousness. His protagonists are frequently everyday individuals—often paranoid, uncertain, or troubled—caught in surreal and often dangerous circumstances that force them to question their environment and themselves. Works such as Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and A Scanner Darkly reflect his fascination with perception and altered states of consciousness, often drawing from his own experiences with mental health struggles and drug use.
One of Dick’s most influential novels is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which served as the basis for Ridley Scott’s iconic film Blade Runner. The novel deals with the distinction between humans and artificial beings and asks profound questions about empathy, identity, and what it means to be alive. Other adaptations of his work include Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, and The Man in the High Castle, each reflecting key elements of his storytelling—uncertain realities, oppressive systems, and the search for truth. These adaptations have introduced his complex ideas to audiences well beyond the traditional readership of science fiction.
In the 1970s, Dick underwent a series of visionary and mystical experiences that had a significant influence on his later writings. He described receiving profound knowledge from an external, possibly divine, source and documented these events extensively in what became known as The Exegesis, a massive and often fragmented journal. These experiences inspired his later novels, most notably the VALIS trilogy, which mixes autobiography, theology, and metaphysics in a narrative that defies conventional structure and genre boundaries.
Throughout his life, Dick faced financial instability, health issues, and periods of personal turmoil, yet he remained a dedicated and relentless writer. Despite limited commercial success during his lifetime, his reputation grew steadily, and he came to be regarded as one of the most original voices in speculative fiction. His work has been celebrated for its ability to fuse philosophical depth with gripping storytelling and has influenced not only science fiction writers but also philosophers, filmmakers, and futurists.
Dick’s legacy continues to thrive in both literary and cinematic spheres. The themes he explored remain urgently relevant in the modern world, particularly as technology increasingly intersects with human identity and governance. The Philip K. Dick Award, named in his honor, is presented annually to distinguished works of science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. His writings have also inspired television series, academic studies, and countless homages across media.
Through his vivid imagination and unflinching inquiry into the nature of existence, Philip K. Dick redefined what science fiction could achieve. His work continues to challenge and inspire, offering timeless insights into the human condition a
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
July 10, 2019
First published in If (August, 1955), “The Mold of Yancy” shows how the government of the star Colony Callisto subtly induces a passive, persuadable mindset in its colonists by creating a virtual model citizen, the kindly old grandfatherly figure John Yancy. Yancy has many likes and dislikes, and openly expresses an opinion about everything. Yet somehow, Yancy remains both bland and enigmatic, and his white-bread yet folksy inscrutability is the secret of his power: he tells the people everything they want to hear, and yet tells them nothing at all.
Of this story, Philip K. Dick said: “Obviously, Yancy is based on President Eisenhower. During his reign we all were worrying about the man-in-the-grey-flannel-suit problem; we feared that the entire country was turning into one person and a whole lot of clones. (Although in those days the word "clone" was unknown to us.) I liked this story enough to use it as the basis for my novel THE PENULTIMATE TRUTH; in particular the part where everything the government tells you is a lie. I still like that part; I mean, I still believe it's so.”
March 15, 2023
3.5 stars
June 13, 2021
“Don’t confuse a totalitarian society with a dictatorship,” Kellman said dryly. “A totalitarian state reaches into every sphere of its citizens’ lives, forms their opinions on every subject. The government can be a dictatorship, or a parliament, or an elected president, or a council of priests. That doesn’t matter.”
The Mold of Yancy, which was published in If in 1955, is one of those stories by PKD that are not very outstanding in terms of narration but that brilliantly make a point and prove Dick’s fantastic talent for predicting social developments.
The story is set on Jupiter’s moon Callisto, whose population has grown accustomed to listening to the folksy wisdom of a renowned avuncular war veteran by the name of Yancy. Yancy is the embodiment of middle-class values, counting gardening and playing croquet among his hobbies and displaying inoffensive, bland tastes in arts and literature. In his TV speeches, he likes to illustrate his opinions with the help of simple anecdotes about his grandson Ralph and with homespun adages, and most of what he says seems harmless and everyday-like enough, but he also sermonizes on patriotism, the need to fight just wars, however war is to be avoided in general, and on conservative politics. Dick later said that he shaped Yancy on President Dwight Eisenhower, whose folksiness helped him win the public’s trust and shape their way of thinking. The Yancy in the story, though, has a secret: He is not an actual person but a gestalt made up by those in charge of Callisto society – not so much the government as ”the trading syndicates that own this moon: lock, stock, and barrel.” Dick is not so naïve as to suppose that governments pursue agendas of their own rather than one handed down by capitalist associations like, let’s say, the WEF, and in The Mold of Yancy, he shows how they use mass media to shape public opinion, generate certain mindsets and establish commonly held beliefs, turning people into more or less brainwashed masses that can even be manipulated into acting against their own personal interests for what is called the “common benefit”.
Just let the following quotations speak for themselves:
Of course, the politics carried through on the basis of this ubiquitous manipulation need not necessarily be “conservative” and its means need not always be waging a war against one’s neighbour. Instead, the threats picked by the media and by politicians as something we all have to gird our loins against may take any shape, and the future society they advise as the only way out of our present-day predicament may also come in any form and its proponents may look less homely than a fatherly Yancy – I think you may be getting the idea.
An aspect that is not mentioned in the story but that I think also plays a role in facilitating the remoulding of public opinion in ways that support a government’s policy and convince people of letting go of their individual rights is the fact that consumerism has weakened the appeal of traditional communities like family, neighbourhood, trade unions or religion. The result is, at first sight, the increase in personal freedom because we seem to be able to make our own choices as to how we want to live our own lives, but at the same time we lose the security of sharing (traditional) values with our neighbours and get used to mixing up life with lifestyle. Apart from that, our dependence on digital media is growing daily, not least in the wake of the current crisis. As a consequence, we find ourselves drifting into a world of atomized individuals, whose only common ground are consumption patterns and the moral-laden ideologies of the day. Ignorant of what our neighbours really think and not wanting to become social outcasts, we assume that public opinion is better adhered to since it might reflect the mindset of the majority. The extent to which we have grown used to official sources doing the thinking, and the feeling, for us is illustrated in Dick’s story by a nine-year old boy who, when asked whether a particular war could be seen as a just war, says that when the time comes surely they will be told. The way out of this dilemma would be to trust to one’s own intellectual capacities again, or, as the story says,
The Mold of Yancy, which was published in If in 1955, is one of those stories by PKD that are not very outstanding in terms of narration but that brilliantly make a point and prove Dick’s fantastic talent for predicting social developments.
The story is set on Jupiter’s moon Callisto, whose population has grown accustomed to listening to the folksy wisdom of a renowned avuncular war veteran by the name of Yancy. Yancy is the embodiment of middle-class values, counting gardening and playing croquet among his hobbies and displaying inoffensive, bland tastes in arts and literature. In his TV speeches, he likes to illustrate his opinions with the help of simple anecdotes about his grandson Ralph and with homespun adages, and most of what he says seems harmless and everyday-like enough, but he also sermonizes on patriotism, the need to fight just wars, however war is to be avoided in general, and on conservative politics. Dick later said that he shaped Yancy on President Dwight Eisenhower, whose folksiness helped him win the public’s trust and shape their way of thinking. The Yancy in the story, though, has a secret: He is not an actual person but a gestalt made up by those in charge of Callisto society – not so much the government as ”the trading syndicates that own this moon: lock, stock, and barrel.” Dick is not so naïve as to suppose that governments pursue agendas of their own rather than one handed down by capitalist associations like, let’s say, the WEF, and in The Mold of Yancy, he shows how they use mass media to shape public opinion, generate certain mindsets and establish commonly held beliefs, turning people into more or less brainwashed masses that can even be manipulated into acting against their own personal interests for what is called the “common benefit”.
Just let the following quotations speak for themselves:
”The earlier totalitarian societies had been incomplete; the authorities hadn’t really gotten into every sphere of life. But techniques of communication had improved.”
“And to start a war, they have to get the public lined up. Actually, the people here have nothing to gain. A war would wipe out all the small operators — it would concentrate power in fewer hands — and they’re few enough already. […] To get the eighty million people here behind the war, they need an indifferent, sheep-like public. And they’re getting that. When this Yancy campaign is finished, the people here on Callisto will accept anything. […] We’ve been conditioning the public for eleven straight years. The important thing is the unvarying monotony of it. A whole generation is growing up looking to Yancy for an answer to everything.”
Of course, the politics carried through on the basis of this ubiquitous manipulation need not necessarily be “conservative” and its means need not always be waging a war against one’s neighbour. Instead, the threats picked by the media and by politicians as something we all have to gird our loins against may take any shape, and the future society they advise as the only way out of our present-day predicament may also come in any form and its proponents may look less homely than a fatherly Yancy – I think you may be getting the idea.
An aspect that is not mentioned in the story but that I think also plays a role in facilitating the remoulding of public opinion in ways that support a government’s policy and convince people of letting go of their individual rights is the fact that consumerism has weakened the appeal of traditional communities like family, neighbourhood, trade unions or religion. The result is, at first sight, the increase in personal freedom because we seem to be able to make our own choices as to how we want to live our own lives, but at the same time we lose the security of sharing (traditional) values with our neighbours and get used to mixing up life with lifestyle. Apart from that, our dependence on digital media is growing daily, not least in the wake of the current crisis. As a consequence, we find ourselves drifting into a world of atomized individuals, whose only common ground are consumption patterns and the moral-laden ideologies of the day. Ignorant of what our neighbours really think and not wanting to become social outcasts, we assume that public opinion is better adhered to since it might reflect the mindset of the majority. The extent to which we have grown used to official sources doing the thinking, and the feeling, for us is illustrated in Dick’s story by a nine-year old boy who, when asked whether a particular war could be seen as a just war, says that when the time comes surely they will be told. The way out of this dilemma would be to trust to one’s own intellectual capacities again, or, as the story says,
”When a nine-year-old-boy wanted to find out if a war was just or unjust, he would have to inquire into his own mind.”
March 23, 2016
Incredible to think that this manipulation was frowned upon when Philip K. Dick wrote this story, and now, is simply reality.
December 21, 2021
This short story outshines 1984 and 451 in ~15 pages
October 9, 2021
Interesting concepts that were probably less well known in 1955 than they are today. Thinking back on 1955 as being in the middle of a conservative decade then PDK is probably bringing to light the misuse of the powers of manipulation that were still in being developed politically then. If I had read it in 1955 it would have made me think more than it does today after years of exposure to the things PDK is pointing out. The story is written in a slower more mundane style than his other stories of the time. That makes it 3 stars today and a potential 4 stars if I read it first in 1955.
December 27, 2024
Novella was entertaining and interesting as PKD's writing always is, but not as fruitful as I'd have liked. I quite liked the fictional technology, but the story itself seemed a bit too straightforward.... Not much intrigue and several obvious sentiments about how ubiquity can lead to conformity can lead to totalitarianism under the guise of harmless appraisals.
Then again - PKD makes a very good point with those sentiments. They're a splendid definition of the ideal, under-the-radar dictatorship. The novella certainly resonates.
Then again - PKD makes a very good point with those sentiments. They're a splendid definition of the ideal, under-the-radar dictatorship. The novella certainly resonates.
May 3, 2018
This story does not "flow" very well. However, understanding the story and the commentary (especially now with the virtual idol of Hatsune Miku) make this a 5-star story.
Yancy is based off of Eisenhower's first term: elected in 1952, this story was written in 1955, and Eisenhower went on to win reelection in 1956. Simple slogans and mind control through propaganda!
Yancy is based off of Eisenhower's first term: elected in 1952, this story was written in 1955, and Eisenhower went on to win reelection in 1956. Simple slogans and mind control through propaganda!
January 7, 2024
Dick is one of my absolute favorite authors and I just read "The Mold of Yancy" for the first time as part of a set of short stories. Dick's writing can be high-concept and especially difficult to understand before the story gains context, but that's what I love. Each story is a mystery with a message and "The Mold of Yancy" is no exception.
May 24, 2019
Interesting idea that is nowadays very recognizable with all the "fake news". Fascinating how he yet found another aspect of our society that he predicted would happen: how we mind-control people completely. Let's me think a lot about 1948 actually.
September 13, 2018
This story was written about mind control and subliminal messages, a cautionary tale of molding society. Reading it in 2018 is almost eery.
September 10, 2023
I like Ike. Gang gang; ice cream so good.
October 1, 2024
The Mold of Yancy- Reminded me of DADOES with its contrived popular TV celebrity, "But he knew winter was coming." "Yancy likes people to take a spiritual view of matters."
March 2, 2025
We know, way too early, the identity of Yancy, so the fun is spoiled imo.
February 26, 2023
A scary and terrifying world of brainwashing.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews