the soup parable: the U.S. as a utilitarian nation — "utilitarienne. Maximize pleasure, minimize displeasure: result…"

Marathe diagnoses the nation as a philosophy: the U.S. is "utilitarienne" — "Maximize pleasure, minimize displeasure: result: what is good" — and Steeply confirms the founding creed, that "each American seeking to pursue his maximum good results together in maximizing everyone's good." This is the theme's account of O.N.A.N.'s moral operating system: a polity that has replaced the choosing of what-to-value with a pleasure-calculus, which is precisely why (072, and the parable's own close) it cannot defend itself against a lethal pleasure. The whole soup parable exists to test this creed to destruction.