RE: Ukraine on Fire
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What I was aiming at was not the perspective of the powerful. I was more concerned with highlighting the total futility of bureaucratic acts. There is no sense to be found in them. If you ask people about it, you frustrate them because they can't give you one, except that it is now so "regulated". But where you insist on getting a meaning (answer), you get innumerable answers, because the human brain WANTS to find a meaning. Thereby one is oneself involved in the manifestation of the (annoying) justifications, because one achieves exactly the opposite of what one actually wanted to achieve.
The bureaucracy is constantly demanding new documents and when you ask someone in the administration "Why do you want that?", answers like "So that fraud is prevented. Otherwise anyone could come and apply for something and tell the untruth." In this way, exceptions are steered into a set of rules that assumes that everyone lies and cheats. The exception is declared the rule.
This is how we humans get entangled in a horizontal debate and fuel conflict among ourselves, because the senselessness in the regulations of the bureaucracy is incapable of providing true answers. But if you try to point out to someone that he is a vicarious agent of meaninglessness, he will want to get rid of you or, if you insist on answers, he will deal with you more harshly and make life difficult for you. Finally, he will tell you that it is for your own good and believe it. Only because he feels personally attacked by you in his identity. His answers will be all the more convincing the more he gets the feeling that he is an idiot in your eyes.
If you ask me, the only way to realise that someone is being led on by bureaucratic futility is through friendly irritation. If you are only able to irritate one person out of ten in a friendly way, a lot is already gained, I think.
Peace to you as well.
I faced an exemplary situation of mindless bureaucracy just recently, when I insisted I could not wear a mask in a government office that insisted I wear a mask. The clerk I was speaking with allowed I could accomplish my business there if I just held a mask in the vicinity of my face.
They were visibly startled when I pointed out that doing so was absolutely incapable of hindering the spread of viruses, and just as effective as actually wearing it would be. They recited a mantra that their office served people with compromised immune systems so they just had to require me to wave a mask in the vicinity of my face. You could practically see the cognitive dissonance in their eyes.
Thanks!
A good example you give. This clerk will certainly have been aware of the strangeness of his request because, it seems, he knew it was only to keep up appearances. People who feel friendly towards each other gradually dispense with all masks in this familiar circle, yet they insist on them with strangers. It is all a matter of trusting the people with whom one is in relationship. It is more difficult where people do not notice such things or do not want to admit their ambivalent behaviour.
What these measures do to all of us is to rob us of any spontaneity and preconceived trust. This is where the greatest damage lies, the loss of mutual trust in everyday interaction.
Those who wear masks want to trust those who do not wear masks, and they can only do so if one gives in to this wish in a personal way. So it is always a new situation with new people, which makes it so troublesome because you never know who you will meet and in what mood. When I got married last year, I took the mask off in front of the registrar, announcing that I intended to get married without it. She asked permission to keep hers on, so we gave it to her. I also went into an administration office before without a mask at all and was not bothered by anyone. The thing is that you don't know beforehand and those who start asking questions or trying to secure themselves often achieve the opposite.
All what people actually want is being understood and seen. To achieve this mutual friendliness in a situation like yours is truly an artistic act, I think.