He would deserve to be shot. And as for this
question of Pharisaism ...
And there is always a way of obeying an order while yet retaining the
command, a way of carrying out what one believes to be an absurd
operation while correcting its absurdity, even though it involve one's
own death. When in my bureaucratic capacity I have come across some
legislative ordinance that has fallen into desuetude because of its
manifest absurdity, I have always endeavoured to apply it. There is
nothing worse than a loaded pistol which nobody uses left lying in some
corner of the house; a child finds it, begins to play with it, and kills
its own father. Laws that have fallen into desuetude are the most
terrible of all laws, when the cause of the desuetude is the badness of
the law.
And these are not groundless suppositions, and least of all in our
country. For there are many who, while they go about looking out for I
know not what ideal--that is to say, fictitious duties and
responsibilities--neglect the duty of putting their whole soul into the
immediate and concrete business which furnishes them with a living; and
the rest, the immense majority, perform their task perfunctorily, merely
for the sake of nominally complying with their duty--_para cumplir_, a
terribly immoral phrase--in order to get themselves out of a difficulty,
to get the job done, to qualify for their wages without earning them,
whether these wages be pecuniary or otherwise.
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