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This morning while driving to his day job, the Devil’s Advocate happily fell in behind a most enlightened motorist. The Devil’s Advocate knew that the operator was a progressive, open minded benefactor of all humanity that doubtless believed in the rights of all species, simply desiring to “live and let live.”
The clue that tipped off the DA? Words fail to describe the wonderful experience that virtually baptized him in blissful euphoria as he read the bumper which stated: “Question Authority.”
Somehow, amid the rapturous beauty of that most central declaration, the DA, only through deep concentration, found a way to operate his vehicle on to his first appointment. There on the receptionist’s wall was another slogan that should have boosted the DA to even greater heights of illumination, but instead filled him with a lot of consternation and a little dread. The slogan? “Visualize World Peace.”
Dropping back down to earth like Newton’s apple, the DA was forced to contemplate the obvious: “Let’s see now, I really want to do my part to contribute to the good of all specie-kind by visualizing world peace, but fifteen minutes ago I was told to question authority! Visualize World Peace, now that statement just rings with such--such, well such authority, and, O dear, now what?”
The Devil’s Advocate now began to fight off a sense of deep gloom as he contemplated the first statement, “Question Authority.” “How,” he reflected, “Can I comply with the directive to question authority without submitting to the rule that the statement itself makes? The summons to question authority is itself a statement of authority. Now what?” Darkly and ever so slowly, he began to realize that the very concept of authority was inescapable.
And none too soon. For as he emerged from cloud nine through this brush with reality, he recalled with disappointment that the driver that had seemed so wonderfully enlightened, so questioning of authority, so free from artificial restraint, had himself miserably failed to embrace his own propaganda. Yes, indeed: Vividly, the DA remembered that this driver, when he came to a stop light--O how one shudders to think of it--actually...stopped.
The DA is still in recovery.