<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

"Null-P" is a 5,000-word short story by William Tenn, about a militantly egalitarian future. It was first published in the January, 1951 issue of Worlds Beyond.

Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.

Plot

In the years after the world’s second atomic war, a midwestern doctor does a checkup on a patient of his named George Abnego, and finds him to be an average man in almost every respect. The press and government pick up the story, and Abnego becomes a celebrity as America's most average man. He is elected to office, and becomes president, reigning for decades, until his descendants, also average, are ready to take over for him. As a politician, he ducks almost every issue, except for his call that college admissions should favor students with average grades. Foreign political scientists note that this is a major break from the Plato's view that the best people should govern—now America has replaced that with the Doctrine of the Lowest Common Denominator. But it leads to a peaceful, if uninnovative world. Abnegism rules the human race for 250,000 years—until a group of dogs evolves their own kind of intelligence. The dogs take over the world, breed humans for their own purposes (throwing sticks), and then when machines are available to throw sticks more efficiently, they allow humans to go extinct.

Additional Notes

This story has been republished in Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 13 (1951).