Sometimes it is hard to remember what it is like being a child and so it may be hard to recall why a game like this was such fun. To be a child is to be full of the élan for life and its many excitements and distractions. Self-control is one of the hardest tasks for a child and this game is a tease about the conflict between self-direction and self-control. And it is a bit of farce on the theme of dealing with adults, who are creatures full of rules and directions and forever insisting on good behavior, on following the rules.

Eventually we all grow up and slowly, inexorably loose that internal voice of self-direction in favor of the utility and even benefits of following the instructions of others. "Good behavior" becomes simply "behavior" as the child in us goes to sleep and the adult, that creature of self-control, takes up the role of "Simon."

It never occurred to me quite this way before but yesterday as I read President Obama's statement accompanying the torture memoranda, I started to think of "growing up" as a moral failing. As a child there was a loud inner voice that contended with the various directives from others. As an adult it seems I should be content to wait and listen for the phrase "Simon says." Without that inner voice this game is no longer any fun.