Moultonic Reflections: To My Mind...

Siouxsie Sioux and the Insouciant Kangaroo

Now we are getting somewhere. Now we are examining why Rule-Based Regulation (aka "The Hammurabic Method of Social Regulation") is so dysfunctional and consumptive of time, energy, emotions, attention, and other scarce resources.

What are Rules, anyway? They are a vain attempt by Machiavellian Control Phreaks in the guise of Motet Admin Agent Smith -- or his puerile kaibosher, Senator Zyklon B. PussyPhart -- to prevent the occurrence of carefully defined events which they dread. But you cannot outlaw Fear, because Fear, like all emotions, is a God-Given Feature of The Human Condition. If you manage to outlaw one dreadful event, another one will inevitably arise to take its place. The Amygdala will not be mocked. Its assigned job is to sift and sort through fears and dreads, threats and worries, anxieties and unpeace.

Face it, folks -- some people enjoy and delight in activities and processes which others frankly dread. For example, I dread alienation and scapegoating, and being falsely accused of a (supposedly criminal) act which I did not commit. And yet I can neither avoid that dreadful experience nor successfully outlaw (or punish) it. I have little choice but to suffer through it, every time it happens, without regard to what (or who) is at stake and about to be burned yet again.

By the way, I am amused that the phrase "These Motets" has gained prominence and currency, since I coined it. But I don't expect anyone to ask my permission to use it, or to acknowledge where it originated. The Internet is not a Just Place. It's just a cyberspace Theater of the Absurd.