Imagine a campus, a court, or an office where a posted notice decrees a specific cut of skirt or a sanctioned shade of tie “appropriate.” The order’s presumed purpose is uniformity: to make bodies legible and roles unmistakable. Yet its frivolity undermines its own logic. The decree reveals itself as an exercise in control for control’s sake — a rehearsal of authority divorced from moral or practical weight. It becomes performative: the institution proves it can command, and those subjected to it practice compliance or resistance, each move a spoken sentence in a quiet conversation about power.