In T.H. White's retelling of the Arthurian legend as an allegory in defense of liberalism, The Once and Future King, young Arthur asks Merlin to change him into an ant and place him near an ant colony.
The Wart, as the young Arthur is known, encounters a world of confusing and illogical language used by ants who live in an insane authoritarian society. A sign at the entrance to the ant colony reads "EVERYTHING NOT FORBIDDEN IS COMPULSORY".
Almost four decades later Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea lift that phrase for their anarchist mind-trip, the Illuminatus! Trilogy, to describe liberalism driven to its extreme conclusion: everything not forbidden is compulsory, and everything not compulsory is forbidden.
If that is the theory, prison is the praxis. Two walls in our day room are completely covered in bulletins and many of them contradict one another. They are an English teacher's nightmare, littered with extraneous apostrophes and commas, and gratuitous misuse of homophones. The bulletins may describe compulsory procedures, optional requests, as well as things deemed forbidden. The only thing consistent about these postings is that they are always surrounded by at least one bulletin contradicting the original, and one offering up the same notice but in a context which negates both the original and the contradiction.
Many of the postings are notices which announce ambiguous changes to policy. My favorite is one announcing the availability of $.01 stamps to add to stamped-envelopes which had been purchased earlier. Near the bottom of the notice an available purchase date is listed. But for how long are they available?
"1 cent stamps are only available for at leased[sic] two weeks."
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