“standard forms are imposed in dress, behavior,
sexual relation, punctuation. standard form s are imposed on consciousness and behavior—on knowing and
expressing— so that we will not presume freedom , so
that freedom will appear —in all its particulars — impossible and unworkable, so that we will not know what
telling the truth is, so that we will not feel compelled
to tell it, so that we will spend our time and our holy
human energy telling the necessary lies.
standard forms are sometimes called conventions,
conventions are mightier than armies, police, and prisons. each citizen becomes the enforcer, the doorkeeper,
an instrument o f the Law, an unfeeling guard punching his fellow man hard in the belly.”