(Found) looking for an old sci fi short story about a teddy bear

[crazywomancreek]

hi folks-
i am writing a piece on the recently released torture report and i want to include a line from a story i read as a teen. do you know the name of an old (70's maybe?) sci fi story about a future where children are raised by teddy bears - the teddy bears are kind of like "skinner boxes" they provide all of the moral and social training that children need to become positive, functioning citizens. the protagonist in the story has killed a politician but can't reconcile his action because it should be impossible- all teddy bears are programmed to teach that murder is wrong, ergo murder has ceased to exist. the denouement happens when he questions his teddy bear about murder and his teddy bear is silent- he realizes that he has been groomed from birth to be a political assassin - his teddy bear was programmed without this crucial information. [i may be wrong on some of these details- i haven't read it since i was a teen and i think it was in one of those cheap sci fi monthly magazines.] does any of that ring a bell?
thanks so much in advance for any help you can provide,
sara burlingame

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I've read that. In a collection.
Ray Bradbury?
Asimov?
I'd say most of the details are correct. It's an educational device.
Sadly I can't remember the Author or Title. While it might originally have been in a Magazine, I've only heard of them, never had one or seen one in a Newsagent.

I think

"I always do what Teddy says" by Harry Harrison

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Harry Harrison
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_short_stories_by_Harry_Harrison

 

[The Judge]

I hope that's the book you're searching for. In the meantime, I'll move this over to Book Search which is where we keep these threads.

 

[mellotronman]

Definitely Harrison's 'I Always Do What Teddy Says' - just re-read to make sure. Good call, Ray! The only detail crazywomancreek got wrong was that the protagonist hadn't killed the politician, but was supposed to.

 

[SuzeLP]

Hi, Everyone,
I remember reading "I Always Do What Teddy Says" in an anthology of SF. In the same book is a story I've been trying to track down for ages. The world has been at war for decades. Everything goes into the war effort. A psychologist is brought in because some of the people who are suffering from shell shock in a locked ward keep disappearing. It turns out they are going to the past. The generals want to find out how they do it to use the time travel as a means of war. But the people go back to an anachronistic past: the woman who fancies herself a Cleopatra smokes a cigarette, for instance. It turns out that they are going back to a time created in their minds. The psychologist tells the generals that they need a poet to learn how the patients are doing what they do. But because everyone is trained from birth to be a soldier or a scientist, there are no poets to be found.

Strike any chords? Thanks in advance.

 

[Matteo]

Sounds to me like Disappearing Act by Alfred Bester - which can be found in Science Fact/Fiction, pub.1974, ed. Farrell (which also contains I Always do What Teddy Tells Me.

 

[SuzeLP]

Thank you, Matteo! I think you're right. Funny, I kept thinking that 1974 was around when I'd read it, and then when I found this discussion, I thought I should start looking around 1965, since that was when "I Always Listen to Teddy" was published. But, yes, I think you're right! Thank you so much!

Sounds to me like Disappearing Act by Alfred Bester - which can be found in Science Fact/Fiction, pub.1974, ed. Farrell (which also contains I Always do What Teddy Tells Me.

 

[Matteo]

My pleasure - glad I could help. And a quick look on-line shows it's fairly easy to source a copy (Abe, Amazon, etc.).

 

[hdabe]

Try 'Earthmen's Burden' by Poul Anderson

 

[BeckyF]

We had a compilation in the early 80s in high school that I've looked for since the late 80s when my copy was stolen.
It was "Science Faction" and the story I believe you're referencing is "I Always Do What Teddy Says"