Buried beneath the Bureaucracy

A good bureaucracy is the best tool of oppression ever invented. 

- Frank Herbert

Oppression is a dish best served at a distance.  It is difficult to impose without some discomfort at close range- unless one possesses a truly sadistic nature.  However, many find the misery of others permissible, if they can avoid that troubling sense of responsibility.  

As the Milgram experiments demonstrated, "Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process."   When the situation demands,"...a person comes to view themselves as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes, and they therefore no longer see themselves as responsible for their actions."

Here lies the genius of an effective bureaucracy- by separating oppression into component parts, with each action itself not singularly heinous, individuals can work together to perform truly abominable deeds. A fetter of persecution is forged link by link; small actions of cruelty and indifference weld together a chain of oppression sturdy enough to bind anyone.  Lives are destroyed, but no-one need feel culpable; the conscience of each participant in the crime remains ostensibly clean.  

When one can raze the life and livelihood of others without the slightest compunction, the limits for decimation becomes unbounded; an effective bureaucracy facilitates and even encourages this.  It is easier and more productive to eradicate rather than accommodate; no solutions need be devised, no answers need be sought.  A unyielding imposition of rules under the guise of efficiency allows inhumanity to flourish, and with it, oppression is a forgone conclusion.  

Thus, the "good" bureaucracy becomes the tool of unmitigated evil, and its work force become callous agents of malevolence; their humanity inhumed beneath the ruthless regulations that rule and ruin the lives of all.

 

Silencing The Forest

Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.

Henry van Dyke 

No matter how good you are at something, there’s always about a million people better than you.     

Gotcha.  Can’t win, don’t try.

The Simpsons

It is far easier to abandon our efforts than to strive imperfectly forward, especially in a culture of constant criticism and condemnation.  When even our most earnest actions seem paltry, and a chorus of internet critics are quick to belittle them, apathy feels very appealing.  

It is the focus, however that is at fault here.  The idea that only the best may contribute their works and all others must refrain, poisons public discourse and leads to a pernicious habit of denigrating the offerings of others.  Instead of endeavoring to encourage each other, the standard mode becomes that of disparagement- and tearing down is always easier than building up.

When only the winner is awarded accolades, and the rest are shouted down into silence, the reticence becomes deafening.