Bureaucracy -- Fiction; England -- Fiction; Satire; Science fiction
It will be generally admitted that Acts are not good at explaining
themselves, and call for words to explain them; many words, so many that
it is at times wondered whether the Acts are worth it. It occurred about
this time to the Ministry of Brains that more words were called for to
explain both the Mental Progress Act recently passed and the Mind
Training Act which was still a Bill. For neither of these Acts seemed to
have yet explained itself, or been explained, to the public, in such a
manner as to give general satisfaction. And yet explanations had to be
given with care. Acts, like lawyers' deeds, do not care to be understood
through and through. The kind of explaining they really need, as Kitty
Grammont observed, is the kind called explaining away. For this task she
considered herself peculiarly fitted by training, owing to having had in
her own private career several acts which had demanded it. It was
perhaps for this reason that she was among those chosen by the
authorities for the Explanation Campaign. The Explanation Campaign was
to be fought in the rural villages of England, by bands of speakers
chosen for their gift of the ready word, and it would be a tough fight.
The things to be explained were the two Acts above mentioned.
"And none of mine," Kitty remarked to Prideaux, "ever needed so much
explanation as these will.... Let me see, no one ever even tried to
explain any of the Military Service Acts, did they? At least only in the
press. The perpetrators never dared to face the public man to man, on
village greens."
"It ought to have been done more," Prideaux said. "The Review of
Exceptions, for instance. If questions and complaints could have been
got out of the public in the open, and answered on village greens, as
you say, instead of by official letters which only made things worse, a
lot of trouble might have been avoided. Chester is great on these
heart-to-heart talks.... By the way, he's going to interview all the
Explanation people individually before they start, to make sure they're
going about it in the right spirit."
"That's so like Chester; he'll go to any trouble," Kitty said. "I'm
getting to think he's a really great man."
2
Chester really did interview them all. To Kitty, whom already he knew
personally, he talked freely.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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