Silence
“On the information sheet in a New York hotel, I recently read: ‘Dear guest! To guarantee that you will fully enjoy your stay with us, this hotel is totally smoke-free. For any infringement of this regulation, you will be charged $200.’ The beauty of this formulation, taken literally, is that you are to be punished for refusing to fully enjoy your stay … The superego imperative to enjoy thus functions as the reversal of Kant’s “Du kannst, denn du sollst” (You can, because you must!); it relies on a “You must, because you can!” That is to say, the superego aspect of…