Gary Brandt delivers his most deliciously entertaining and politically charged chapter yet in this brilliant exploration of generational wisdom versus moral panic from The Dimension Of Mind Dot Com, where 77-year-old Anahere faces off against power-hungry former Earth Council members Nancy and Robert, who want to punish a group of teenage boys for the 'scandal' of watching two girls skinny-dip in the river—an incident that reveals the hilarious truth that the girls orchestrated the entire spectacle by deliberately bathing naked when they knew the boys were having a party nearby, hoping to capture their attention after being ignored all evening.
The genius emerges through Brandt's perfect balance of community politics and timeless human nature: Anahere's masterful deconstruction of the 'tragic incident' exposes it as nothing more than typical teenage flirtation, with girls who 'went running home, screaming and squealing, clutching their clothes to their chests, bare bottoms flashing in the moonlight like they were putting on some kind of show,' while her wisdom about raising children through 'honor circles' rather than punishment demonstrates the profound difference between indigenous community values and the authoritarian control systems that Nancy and Robert desperately want to reimpose from their previous positions of power.
What makes this chapter so compelling is how the seemingly trivial riverside incident becomes a battleground for competing visions of society: Anahere's trust-based approach that honors the natural development of young people versus the fear-based control mechanisms that seek to regulate normal teenage behavior through shame and punishment.
But the real fireworks unfold through Nancy's breathtakingly arrogant demand that Anahere abandon her 'autocratic power structure' and restore the old Earth Council hierarchy, leading to Anahere's devastating response that they're 'barely out of the dark ages' with fire as their most advanced technology, making Nancy and Robert's political ambitions completely premature and inappropriate for their actual circumstances as a small agricultural community focused on survival and knowledge preservation.
The chapter's profound wisdom emerges through Anahere's recognition that while defensive training may eventually become necessary, the immediate priority must be raising children and preserving knowledge rather than recreating the power structures that these former leaders miss from their previous lives, while her brilliant solution—appointing Robert to create the militia he wants while requiring him to teach about 'the dangers of ego, pride, and hubris'—demonstrates the kind of strategic thinking that simultaneously gives people what they think they want while protecting the community from their worst impulses.
Brandt masterfully escalates both the practical challenges and the philosophical tensions when the discussion shifts to Joshua—'Crazy Josh who lives out in the woods' with multiple young wives—who turns out to be Anahere's ascended father with complete memory of past-life military experience, perfectly qualified to teach tactics while embodying the mystery of why enlightened beings choose to return to human form for purposes that transcend ordinary understanding.
The chapter ends with perfect anticipation as Anahere proposes visiting this enigmatic warrior-sage in the deep forest, making this both an extraordinary exploration of community governance, generational conflict, and the eternal tension between freedom and control and an achingly beautiful meditation on how sometimes the wisest leadership means refusing to give people the power they crave until they demonstrate the wisdom to use it responsibly, while recognizing that even in paradise, practical preparations for less ideal circumstances may eventually become necessary for survival and the protection of everything we hold dear.