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The Mold of Yancy

Philip K. Dick

3.84 · Rating details · 55 ratings · 7 reviews

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162 pages

Published by Citadel Twilight (first published 1955)

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Jun 18, 2019 Bill Kerwin rated it really liked it

Shelves: 20th-c-amer, short-stories, science-fiction

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 everythin ...more

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Jun 10, 2021 Tristram Shandy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classic-american-literature, politics, science-fiction, short-story

“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 Di “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:

”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.”

...more

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Nov 10, 2015 Marycarmen Knox rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sci-fi

Incredible to think that this manipulation was frowned upon when Philip K. Dick wrote this story, and now, is simply reality.

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Oct 09, 2021 Jim Davis rated it liked it

Shelves: read-short-story

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 o ...more

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May 02, 2018 Austin Wright rated it it was amazing

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! ...more

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May 24, 2019 _ rated it really liked it

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. ...more

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Sep 12, 2018 Jessica rated it it was amazing

This story was written about mind control and subliminal messages, a cautionary tale of molding society. Reading it in 2018 is almost eery.

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About Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick

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Philip K. Dick was born in Chicago in 1928 and lived most of his life in California. In 1952, he began writing professionally and proceeded to write numerous novels and short-story collections. He won the Hugo Award for the best novel in 1962 for The Man in the High Castle and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel of the year in 1974 for Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. Philip K. Di ...more