"A conference is a gathering of people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done"
About this Quote
Allen’s line lands because it weaponizes the basic promise of modern institutions: that collective effort produces collective power. He flips that promise into a deadpan indictment. The joke isn’t just that conferences are useless; it’s that they’re uniquely capable of manufacturing a shared alibi for uselessness. Alone, each person is “powerless.” Together, they achieve a higher-order competence: the official decision to stay inert.
The syntax does the work. “Singly” sounds almost clinical, like a report, then “together” offers the expected uplift before the punch snaps shut: “decide that nothing can be done.” That final clause is bureaucratic fatalism in miniature. It mimics the tone of committees and commissions that turn uncertainty into process, process into consensus, and consensus into a stamped, respectable version of surrender.
Allen, a radio-era comedian with a journalist’s ear for public speech, was writing in a mid-century America that was professionalizing everything: management culture, civic organizations, policy panels. “Conference” evokes hotel ballrooms, name badges, scripted optimism, and the soft coercion of “stakeholders” agreeing not to rock the boat. The subtext is less “people are lazy” than “systems are designed to protect themselves.” A conference can’t fail, because its real product isn’t solutions; it’s legitimacy. If “nothing can be done” is reached collectively, no one has to own the inaction.
It’s cynicism with a grin, but it’s also a warning: when decision-making becomes performance, indecision becomes policy.
The syntax does the work. “Singly” sounds almost clinical, like a report, then “together” offers the expected uplift before the punch snaps shut: “decide that nothing can be done.” That final clause is bureaucratic fatalism in miniature. It mimics the tone of committees and commissions that turn uncertainty into process, process into consensus, and consensus into a stamped, respectable version of surrender.
Allen, a radio-era comedian with a journalist’s ear for public speech, was writing in a mid-century America that was professionalizing everything: management culture, civic organizations, policy panels. “Conference” evokes hotel ballrooms, name badges, scripted optimism, and the soft coercion of “stakeholders” agreeing not to rock the boat. The subtext is less “people are lazy” than “systems are designed to protect themselves.” A conference can’t fail, because its real product isn’t solutions; it’s legitimacy. If “nothing can be done” is reached collectively, no one has to own the inaction.
It’s cynicism with a grin, but it’s also a warning: when decision-making becomes performance, indecision becomes policy.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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