Hugh Hefner on Freedom: A Satire
"Freedom is the most terrifying thing in the world." - Robert Anton Wilson, speaking as Hugh Hefner
One of the joys of writing fiction is the ability to take on the voice of a real person and make them say anything you want. I got a kick out of putting words into Richard Dawkins’ mouth, for example, in my story “Richard Dawkins by the Light of the Moon.” Pick a celebrity—from Elvis Presley to Abraham Lincoln—and chances are they’ve been similarly fictionalized to humorous effect.
I’ve recently been reading through the eclectic works Robert Anton Wilson. In his comic novel The Sex Magicians, he parodies his time spent working as an editor for Playboy magazine. In the novel, Playboy is called Pussycat and Hugh Hefner is given the name Sput. It’s a hell of a crazy read, most notably for Sput’s longwinded rants about sex, society, and the publishing industry. You can tell Wilson thoroughly enjoyed personifying his old boss and making him say whatever he wanted. The rants are pretty on-brand for Hefner, but they’re often—hilariously—taken to pretty wild extremes.
So, ever want to know what Hugh Hefner “really” thought about freedom? Here’s his most freewheeling rant on the topic, as written by Robert Anton Wilson. For context, this is Hef—Sput—in his prime, stoned at a raging party at the Chicago Playboy Mansion. This has been edited to read as a single rant. In the novel, this text is actually spread across several chapters.
Sput’s Freedom Rant
"Freedom," Sput was saying, "is the most terrifying thing in the world. Fact. People will go to any length to convince themselves they're not free. If they can't convince themselves they're being watched by the cops, they'll worry about the neighbors. Put them in the wilderness, hundreds of miles from other people, and they'll regress to childhood and start worrying that the Old Man in the Sky is watching them. Anything, no matter how irrational, to avoid doing what they want to do. Just so they can think they're acting under compulsion and, hence, aren't really responsible for what they do. Why was Hitler obeyed? Easy: anybody can be obeyed. People stand around waiting for orders if the boss is out of the room." He paused and took a thoughtful toke on the hookah.
"Here we have freedom," Sput said. "Any vice squad or narcotics cop who bucks the political machine and tries to pull a raid will never get past the voice print on the door—until we have time to clean up and hide the evidence, anyway. So everybody here is free. And what are they doing? Same as any other party. Waiting for me to do something outrageous first, so they can then follow suit. It's depressing.
"When I started Pussycat," Sput announced, returning to his previous mood and topic, "I had only one thought in mind: increasing the total amount of freedom in the world. Of course," he added with a roguish grin, "it wasn't against my principle to get rich in the process. But freedom was paramount. And now, after twenty years, what do I see? What do I see? I'll tell you what I see. People are as shit-scared and cowardly as ever, and still waiting for orders. Nothing can change humanity. Jesus couldn't do it. Jefferson couldn't do it. Even I can't do it. People are hopeless."
"You worry too much," Stella said sympathetically. "About people. And freedom. And all that shit."
"I could weep when I think of my fellow countrymen," Sput said, toking again on the hookah. "They started with the greatest constitution in the history of the world and have spent nearly two hundred years twisting it backwards to allow themselves the masochistic pleasure of being victimized by tyrants. Separation of church and state, the constitution says—and they've fastened on their own backs a priestly tyranny so archaic that any visiting Englishman or Frenchman thinks he's fallen through a time warp back into the Middle Ages.
“No laws restricting freedom of the press, the constitution says—and there isn't a single media from TV to deaf-and-dumb sign language that isn't policed, regulated, censored, bowdlerized, controlled, restricted, castrated.
“No wars without the consent of congress, the constitution says—and they let any dimwit in the White House invade any country from here to Fernando Poo, and don't have balls enough to start impeachment proceedings. They're even giving up their right to bear arms. And the fact that they're spied on every time they pick up a phone—the fact that they can't even take a crap in a public john without some creep from the vice squad watching them through a peep hole to make sure they don't do anything faggotty—the fact that they have less privacy than the Germans under Hitler—doesn't bother them a whit. They just sprawl there with their faces in the mud and their butts in the air, wiggling and saying 'Stick it into me again, just like you did before.' And the bureaucrats in Washington are glad to oblige. I tell you," he added morosely, "it's enough to make a grown man weep."