The Minority Report

“God, he [Anderton] was beginning to suspect everybody—not only his wife and Witwer, but a dozen members of his staff.”

Anderton is prone to paranoia. Once he sees the punchcard classifying him as a future criminal, he immediately believes the card is “rigged.” His personal insecurities about his looming retirement and subsequent replacement lead him to distrust everyone in his immediate vicinity, whether or not there is plausible evidence to support his suspicions.

“‘I don’t care what you prove or don’t prove,’ Kaplan interrupted. ‘All I’m interested in is having you out of the way. [...] For my own protection.’”

This is the first clear hint that for Kaplan, his own interests are most important. What happens to others as a result of his actions makes no difference to him. This foreshadows his later behavior with the precog reports and Precrime system.

“‘Consider us a protective society,’ Fleming said softly, his plump, expressionless face shining with moisture. ‘A sort of police force that watches the police. To see,’ he added, ‘that everything stays on an even keel.’”

Fleming originally appears to Anderton as a neutral ally. Although he is actually in Kaplan’s employ, his vague phrasing implies several possible meanings: a new organization that Anderton has not yet encountered, another aspect to the delicate check-and-balance system of the three current governing bodies, and an implication of constant surveillance. Although in this context, the surveillance could signal future aid, it becomes much more ominous once Anderton realizes Fleming is Kaplan’s subordinate.

“The existence of a majority logically implies a corresponding minority.”

This is Anderton’s first hint of the existence of the minority report, though he does not fully grasp the meaning of this message until he hears the radio broadcast explaining how the precogs’ prophecies are analyzed. This statement also functions as foreshadowing, hinting at both the burgeoning conflict between precrime law enforcement and the army, as well as between the army and Kaplan’s secret Veterans’ League.

“I wonder […] how many times this has happened before. [...] Perhaps a lot of people in the camps are like you. […] Perhaps all of them would have reacted that way. We could have told them the truth.”

Lisa finally accepts the reality of the minority report and the possibility of Anderton’s innocence. However, she more immediately grasps the bigger picture of Precrime’s flaws: If Anderton is innocent, others might be as well. Anderton rejects this idea, but the thought lingers, reminiscent of the McCarthyist influences at the time of this story’s conception.

“‘You have to be taken in—if Precrime is to survive. You’re thinking of your own safety. But think, for a moment, about the system. […] Which means more to you—your own safety or the existence of the system?’

[…]

‘If the system can survive only by imprisoning innocent people, then it deserves to be destroyed. My personal safety is important because I’m a human being. [...] I’m not going to listen to your defense of a code of behavior no intelligent man could subscribe to.’”

On the surface, Lisa and Anderton discuss a major theme of the story: personal values versus the “greater good.” However, this debate also hints at the anticommunist fears of the Red Scare, during which many innocent people were denounced in the name of rooting out Communist supporters; Dick himself feared Communists, so this question may reflect his own attitude toward McCarthyism.

“‘You don’t think I’m—’ [Witwer] made a disgusted face. ‘Plotting to get your job.’

‘Sure you are. Everybody is guilty of that sort of thing. And I’m plotting to keep it.’”

Anderton and Witwer formally become allies against Kaplan and are able to speak more candidly with each other. Witwer, though still inexperienced, is now less naive and more honest about his ambition; Anderton, meanwhile, has accepted his future replacement by Witwer and recognizes that Witwer’s actions stem from his faith in the Precrime system rather than an underhanded motive to frame Anderton.

“[Kaplan] can prove he’d be just as alive if I were walking the streets. He has the information that proves the majority report obsolete. He can break the Precrime system. […] Heads or tails, he wins—and we lose.”

Kaplan is a master of manipulation; through his various schemes with his henchmen Fleming and Page, he has set the stage for his attempted coup. Now that his motives are clear, his choice to fulfill his personal desires at the expense of society as a whole becomes obvious, and Anderton’s actions appear to have no impact on his desired end result.

“‘We’ve got ourselves boxed in and there’s only one direction we can go. Whether we like it or not, we’ll have to take it.’

[…]

‘Then the minority report is incorrect?’

‘No,’ Anderton said, ‘it’s absolutely correct. But I’m going to murder Kaplan anyhow.’”

This is a turning point for the development of several themes. Anderton chooses to accept his preordained fate and fulfill the prophecy by killing Kaplan. At the same time, Kaplan’s greed reveals the loophole in his plans: He does not expect Anderton to sacrifice his personal desire to prove himself innocent in the interests of maintaining the flawed Precrime system. Finally, by accepting his future as a criminal, Anderton also acquiesces to the reality of transferring power to Witwer—another move that Kaplan cannot fathom.

“By a curious corrosion of time, the AFWA Veterans’ League included officers from the wartime enemy. But a general was a general and fine distinctions had faded over the years.”

War is a common theme in Dick’s writing. Here, the implication is that the military as a general concept has lost power after the war. No matter which side the officers originally belonged to, they now share a common goal of regaining their former glory and prestige—a motivation that reflects Dick’s anti-establishment sentiments.

“There can be no valid knowledge about the future. As soon as precognitive information is obtained, it cancels itself out. The assertion that this man will commit a future crime is paradoxical. The very act of possessing this data renders it spurious. In every case, without exception, the report of the three police precogs has invalidated their own data. If no arrests had been made, there would still have been no crimes committed.”

Through Kaplan’s attempt to discredit Precrime, he references both the theory of multiple-futures and the debate between predestination and free will. Harkening back to the idea that all criminals convicted of future crimes are technically innocent, Kaplan suggests that the possibility that one could commit a crime does not necessarily indicate that one will. Furthermore, if someone discovers the possibility of a future crime, they can try to change that future and therefore reject predestination in favor of free will.

“[After committing the murder, Anderton] was trembling and dizzy. Abruptly, he leaned forward and was violently sick.

‘The poor devil,’ one [of] the cops murmured sympathetically.

Through the swirls of misery and nausea, Anderton was unable to tell whether the cop was referring to Kaplan or himself.”

Murder is rare in the futuristic society of “The Minority Report.” Therefore, although both Kaplan and Anderton are flawed characters, they are also both pitiable. Kaplan, an elderly man, dies horribly and can never give up his selfish greed; Anderton, a celebrated and influential public figure, sacrifices his privilege and standing to oppose Kaplan and fulfill the prophecy that he originally rejected.

“‘There were three minority reports,’ he told Witwer, enjoying the young man’s confusion. Someday, Witwer would learn not to wade into situations he didn’t fully understand. Satisfaction was Anderson’s final emotion. Old and worn-out as he was, he had been the only one to grasp the real nature of the problem.

[...]

‘The third report invalidated the second one in the way the second one invalidated the first. […] Each report was different. […] But two of them agreed on one point. […] That created the illusion of a majority report.’”

Anderton has fully accepted the peaceful transfer of power and police commissioner position to Witwer. Secure in his chosen exile and free of the burden of the Precrime system, Anderton can maintain a more balanced relationship with Witwer. At the same time, his experiences as both a police commissioner and a fugitive deepen his understanding of the process of precog prophecy—particularly the fact that his own foreknowledge can influence future predictions.