Review of Balance (1989) by Edgar C — 01 Sep 2013

A group of anthropomorphic beings stand on a floating platform in the middle of nothingness. Falling off the platform seems to be an assured termination of your life, but the "how" remains unclear. A mysterious box stands in the middle of it, creating a mysterious music that attracts the beings. If anybody starts walking, the platform tilts and begins to lose balance, making everybody else slip towards their sides and endangering their permanence in the platform.

The Lauenstein brothers conceived a strong social criticism with a very basic idea: all of us have the same needs, and resources can be shared in equal measures. You may criticize that I am going back to the utilitarianism of Stuart Mill, but you cannot entirely argue against its justice oriented structure. Any man attempting to gain an advantage has to do so at the cost of the well-being of others, sometimes endangering yourself. The obvious and reasonable solution was that everybody walked towards the same direction with orchestration and organization. Achieving the same vision in everybody is utopia, I agree, yet there can be a consensual understanding of our intrinsic differences as human beings. We have the capacity to think about others. The heavy trunk that the man pulls up in the short may be interpreted as the allegory that you want (industrialization, competitive advantage), but such are the instruments that have led society to its catastrophic and unequal state.

97/100.