One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

In Chapter Eight, McMurphy exposes some of the ward's inane policies. He realizes ways in which the ward impedes a person's ability to make rational decisions. Even deciding when to brush one’s teeth is no longer a choice for the ward residents. The boy’s response invokes, hilariously, the chaos that would ensue if people brushed their teeth willy-nilly. Such arguments are the irrational arguments of control for control’s sake; all too often, an authority figure has no good reason for a rule and can only try to scare off the inquirer by invoking an impossible, extreme case.