| The Art of Fanning |
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It's amazing, the things I come up with in a fit of helpless rage. It's hardly any help at all if I tell myself that the subject matter is not worth the effort - after all you must be daft in a world that's full of misery to devote your entire day to getting worked up about the municipal policy on flag display. Really one should be able to cancel one's subscription the city, as if it were a newspaper. But that's not the point, one of my other selves says in despair. It's only in little things such as this that administrators are happy to expose themselves, to reveal their true identity, knowing full well as they do that no referendum will ever be held on the matter and no policy or career affecting questions will be tabled in Parliament. It is a dead give-away, though, with the quality assurers mooning your dissenting opinion as well as being in a position to impose their views in the form of policy guidelines. And before I forget, I should point out that we're talking about the very same administration the inner city residents rejected in a referendum, and which still got in thanks to the residents of neighbouring boroughs voting with their feet. These unwelcome quality psychopaths have now decided by law that flags constitute urban pollutants. Having to write this down is a mortifying experience for me: it's a threatening development rather than a mere farce. Although I love socialising with citizens who are dead set against flags, heated debate being what gives social interaction its edge, we were all in complete agreement even before the launch of the Polder Model that that was where the buck had to stop. At this point yet another of my collection of selves (of which I have quite a few) suggested in a carefree tone of voice that surely I could imagine what it would feel like to be able to impose my will upon others. This is not so much a matter of serving my own purpose as it is of being able to prevent others imposing their ridiculous will upon me. In so far as the Dutch are right in boasting about their supreme tolerance, life will only remain worth living thanks to there being a mechanism which while taking extreme opinions seriously at the same time reduces excessive power of persuasion to acceptable levels. So how do we go about this in everyday life? I propose that the constituent council should allow one flag for every ten properties, in exchange for gaining the right to stage ten court trials per annum even if this command is not infringed upon. And don't tell me that this would be no use - there are people who simply need to be given something to do. In addition the people should be permitted to put out a maximum of ten flags per property provided they can produce the signatures of a hundred flagless property owners. I would moreover strongly advise a highly democratic regulatory system under which the even house numbers would be permitted to put out flags on even days and the odd numbers, on odd days. I admit that the above will require something of an investment in time and effort, but it would in the end satisfy everyone, and that's what really matters, after all. |