Fascist Rules

Rules make perfection possible, that’s why it’s so great to have them. You follow a limited set of commandments and then you worry no more. There’s no need to ransack your conscience for hidden transgressions for all possible duties are already written down in a book of laws for anyone to read and when obeyed nothing more can be asked of you. You are perfect.

That’s why these model citizens are so arrogant. They know they have no stains on their record and that makes them superior to those imbeciles who are so vicious that they can’t even perform the simplest tasks.

The perfect moralist is a grumpy gentleman who always pays his metro fare but never lends a hand to unfortunate strangers. “If everyone were like me the world would not be in such a mess,” he thinks as he steps over the homeless man on the sidewalk.

But unfortunately for him, there are not ten commandments; there are thousands of them, tens of thousands, a million. Every step we take we may encounter another obligation or prohibition, another order. It’s just that we don’t know them. We can’t know them, and even if we knew it would be impossible to follow them all.

They are not written down anywhere for they are way too complex, although it starts out quite simple: “Don’t hurt people.” “Be nice.” But what would that mean on each and every occasion? One would need a separate law for all potential situations. Millions of them would not be enough.

Here is a reason for despair that our model gentleman could never understand. The Fascist world view expects simplicity on all levels and shuns intricate thinking. It wants perfection to be possible.

But even if you are not a fascist you shouldn’t despair. Since the rules are so infinitely many, they don’t really exist as rules. All we can say is: Do your best. You are not perfect. You are human.