Harmonia

HARMONIA

Written by Phillip Berg

The Silence of Harmonia

The city-state of Harmonia was built on an ideal: a world without suffering, where words could no longer be weapons. It began with the Speech Purity Act, a well-intentioned decree to eliminate harmful language, no insults, no hate speech, no divisive rhetoric. The people rejoiced. No longer would they endure the cruelty of slurs, verbal abuse, or the chaos of misinformation.

At first, it was reasonable. Hate speech was outlawed. Slander became a criminal offense. Public debates were monitored to ensure civility. The citizens felt safer, kinder, more united.

But soon, the definition of “harmful speech” expanded. Political criticism became “social destabilization.” Dissenting voices were labeled “threats to harmony.” Those who questioned the government’s decisions were accused of “corrupting the peace.”

The Council of Words was established to enforce purity in speech. It began with fines, then public apologies. But words, they argued, could cause real harm, and real harm required real consequences.

Bookstores were raided for texts that contained “dangerous ideas.” Old novels were rewritten to remove passages deemed “unproductive to unity.” Artists were arrested for depicting struggle or despair, as these emotions threatened the city’s utopia.

People began to whisper, careful to speak only in approved phrases. Fear took root. Parents warned their children to watch their words, for a single slip could ruin a life. Informants were everywhere, neighbors, coworkers, even friends, incentivized to report “subversive speech” to the Council.

Then, came the first disappearances.

A historian, who dared to write about the fall of past empires, vanished overnight, his work deemed too cynical. A scientist, who warned that suppressing debate would lead to intellectual stagnation, was taken for “re-education.”

Eventually, the Council declared that thought itself could lead to harmful speech. So they created The Harmonizer, a system to monitor brain activity and detect impulses toward dangerous ideas before they could be spoken.

Harmonia became a city of smiling prisoners. Fear disguised itself as kindness. The streets were clean, the people polite, the speeches flawless, because every citizen knew that to question was to vanish.

And so, in the name of protecting speech, speech itself had died.