What Wheels Are For

Oogluk had a huge load of rocks to move and no idea how to move them. He had a box. He had the will. What he didn't have was enough muscle to pull that rock-filled box from Point A to Point B. What to do, what to do?

Fortunately for himself, Oogluk had an inventive and enterprising nature. After some cogitation and head scratching, he had an idea. If you get some ... round things, thought Oogluk, and attach them to the box, ... maybe you could just roll the whole thing to Point B. Well, I don't have to tell you that this idea was a resounding success. Oogluk called his invention "the round, rolling thing," but others, who were better at naming things, called it "the wheel."

You might think that the wheel was a huge, instantaneous success, but it was more complicated than that. Many people rushed to adopt it, it is true. But there was also opposition from the start. Some said the wheel interfered with the free exercise of manual labor, and wheels could never do a job right, anyway.

Nevertheless, the wheel caught on and spread. Before long, variations were tried. Oogluk's model was four wheels on a box, but on the next mountain someone came up with a three-wheeled version. The people on Oogluk's mountain and the people on the other mountain fought all the time, so the three-wheeled variation was declared evil and called Tricyclism. On another mountain, someone discovered that you could stick two wheels together and ride them. Bicyclism was even more degenerate than Tricyclism. We needn't even discuss the "U" word.

On Oogluk's mountain, someone suggested a variation on the standard four-wheeled box. They found that the wheels would last longer if you coated them with some hard yet malleable substance that came from a tree. This was not well received. The people who made uncoated wheels complained that it was Tricyclistic. The Manual Laborists took the opportunity to denounce all wheels, saying, "See? We told you it would lead to this!"

All of this had a useful result, however. People began to talk seriously about the function of wheels. What were wheels for, anyway? The Manual Laborists, of course, said they weren't for anything, ever. Some people felt that wheels should be used only for war machines. Others thought that their purpose was to serve rich people, ensuring that they stayed rich and poor people stayed poor. This was the majority opinion. Then, there were a few people who thought that wheels were a tool for all people, enabling them to do things that they couldn't do by themselves.

What a ridiculous idea, huh?