The Jack-in-the-Boxes

THE JACK-IN-THE-BOXES
    Once it was proposed that jack-in-the-boxes be held accountable for their behavior.
    As might have been predicted, this idea met with immediate, often dismissive objections from many quarters. How could a jack-in-the-box be held accountable for anything, it was asked? You might as well blame a knee for jerking convulsively when tapped. Wasn’t the sum and substance of their very being precisely this ability to spring up, at the push of a button, from the small, lightless boxes in which they otherwise spent their time? What purpose in life could a jack-in-the-box claim if it didn’t dutifully pop out of its darkness on command? 
    Those calling for jack-in-the-box accountability clearly hadn’t reckoned on the strength of this response or, for that matter, on the number of jack-in-the-boxes there actually turned out to be. The presence of genuine antiques packed away in drafty attics or dank basements—cracked reminders of outgrown fears and infantile flusters—would hardly have been surprising, but when freshly manufactured ones began to appear in ever-greater lots, clacking open and shut with loud vehemence and in the most public, most prominent of venues, the extent of the challenge soon became clear.
    Local instances of jack-in-the-box behavior might still have made at least a limited form of answerability feasible, but with new varieties popping up everywhere, addressing this nationwide phenomenon proved difficult, to say the least.
    In addition, evidence of any reluctance to follow the general pattern of automatic jack-in-the-box behavior began to raise questions in reverse about the motives of those not jumping fast enough or high enough themselves. When rows of leading jack-in-the-boxes dutifully lined up to hear a much-anticipated speech, for example, from the local chamber of commerce all the way up to a joint session of Congress, and repeatedly erupted in a loud clatter that drowned out more measured consideration of what might actually have been said, any evidence of restraint or outright refusal to join in the noisy display was call for suspicion, even expressions of scandalized umbrage, at the laggards’ want of patriotism. Criticism of the most flagrant endangerment to others caused by the flapping excesses of prominent jack-in-the-boxes typically led nowhere. 
    If it was large enough and imposing enough, a jack-in-the-box could expect not only to be excused for even the most reckless moves once out of its box but also, as time passed, perhaps honored with a national medal for unflagging trigger-response popoutism.
    Any concern on the part of these spring-loaded puppets that they might have to answer eventually for the consequences of their behavior was minimal. Instead, their chief worry seemed quite different.
    “With so many of us acting virtually the same,” each jack-in-the-box gave every sign of calculating, “how can I show I’m the quickest and loudest of all when it comes to demonstrating on cue exactly what’s expected of me?”