Good and Evil

Over the course of this novel, British society moves through three historically-defined phases, in which government alters its rules and the amount of control it exerts over the populace in accordance with which of three underpinning philosophies prevails. These three views of humankind are essentially judgments of how good or bad, how strong or weak, people are at their core. In the Pelphase, the citizens are considered to be kind, trustworthy, and reasonable, and they are given license to act as they please. The Interphase begins after people take unfair advantage of their freedoms and begin exploiting each other—particularly the rich and powerful exploiting everyone else—which leads to strikes, riots, and crackdowns by police. The Gusphase is ushered in by a determination on the part of leaders that people aren't thoroughly bad, as had been assumed during the Interphase, but that they...