St Anselm's Senior Common Room
The Senior Common Room was unusually quiet.
Professor Quillibrace sat beside the fire reading.
Miss Elowen Stray was writing notes.
Mr Blottisham entered carrying an enormous metal box on a trolley.
The trolley squeaked ominously.
He manoeuvred it toward the centre of the room.
With considerable effort he lifted the lid.
Inside sat hundreds of files.
Quillibrace looked up.
Silence.
"...what is that?"
Blottisham looked delighted.
"The operational layer."
Long silence.
Miss Stray put down her pen.
"The operational layer."
"Exactly."
Blottisham pointed inside the cabinet.
"I've solved institutions."
Quillibrace stared into the middle distance.
"Oh dear."
Blottisham withdrew a file triumphantly.
"Observe."
He opened it.
Inside was a form.
At the top it read:
APPLICATION FOR REALITY PARTICIPATION
Silence.
Quillibrace removed his spectacles.
"Blottisham."
"Yes?"
"Who processes these?"
Blottisham frowned.
"I hadn't entirely settled that."
"No."
"Possibly a department."
Miss Stray looked at another file.
"This one says—"
She paused.
REQUEST FOR TEMPORAL CONTINUITY
Another:
APPLICATION FOR SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE ASPIRATIONS
Another:
RECLASSIFICATION OF EXISTENTIAL STATUS
Long silence.
Quillibrace spoke softly.
"...you've bureaucratised ontology."
Blottisham looked pleased.
"Thank you."
"It was not praise."
After several moments Quillibrace stood.
"The difficulty, Blottisham, is that you're still imagining institutions as things."
Blottisham frowned.
"They are things."
"No."
"No?"
"No."
"But they have buildings."
"Buildings are things."
"They have people."
"People are things."
"They have paperwork."
"Unfortunately."
Blottisham folded his arms.
"Then institutions are collections of things."
Quillibrace sighed.
"They are operational systems."
Silence.
Blottisham looked suspicious.
"Operational systems."
"Yes."
"Meaning?"
"They continuously execute constraints."
Long pause.
Blottisham looked worried.
"I don't care for the sound of that."
Miss Stray leaned forward.
"So institutions don't merely exist."
Quillibrace nodded.
"They continuously reproduce particular forms of coordination."
"Exactly."
Blottisham frowned.
"So power isn't sitting around waiting for important decisions."
"No."
"It operates continuously."
"Yes."
"Through procedures."
"Yes."
"Routines."
"Yes."
"Classifications."
"Yes."
"Administrative processes."
"Yes."
Silence.
Blottisham stared at the filing cabinet.
"Oh no."
Quillibrace looked cautious.
"What?"
"...the paperwork was closer than I realised."
The fire shifted quietly.
Rain tapped against the windows.
Miss Stray looked thoughtful.
"So a curriculum being taught..."
"Mhm."
"A payment being processed..."
"Mhm."
"A category being applied..."
"Mhm."
"A form being accepted or rejected..."
"Mhm."
"These aren't merely administrative details."
"No."
"They're active enactments of constraint structures."
"Precisely."
Blottisham looked uncomfortable.
"But those things seem ordinary."
"Exactly."
Silence.
He looked up slowly.
"Oh."
Quillibrace sat again.
"The most effective operational systems disappear."
"Disappear?"
"Mhm."
"When procedures become smooth..."
"Right."
"...categories feel natural."
"Right."
"...systems feel neutral."
"Right."
"...reality appears simply to function."
Blottisham stared.
Long pause.
"So successful power..."
He thought carefully.
"...becomes invisible administration."
No one spoke.
"...and invisible administration becomes ordinary reality."
Silence.
Miss Stray smiled faintly.
Blottisham looked at the cabinet again.
Then suddenly frowned.
"Wait."
Quillibrace looked wary.
"What now?"
Blottisham pointed triumphantly.
"I've understood something."
Silence.
"If decisions aren't the important thing..."
No one moved.
"...then execution matters more."
Still silence.
"Because decisions only become real once procedures keep reproducing them."
Silence.
Quillibrace slowly looked up.
Very quietly he said:
"Elowen."
"Yes?"
"...he appears to have become operational."
Miss Stray nodded gravely.
"A deeply concerning development."
Blottisham looked pleased.
Then paused.
Then looked slowly back at the cabinet.
"...I've just realised something terrible."
Quillibrace closed his eyes.
"What?"
Blottisham swallowed.
"...who processes the applications for reality participation?"
End of discussion
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