I think “blankface” just isn’t a good word for what that describes. It implies: emptiness and lack of will. Intuitively, I would expect “blankface” to mean “a person who follows the rules or the conventions blindly and refuses to think about the implications”. A flesh automaton animated by regulations.
What it means instead is “a person who puts on the appearance of following the rules, but instead uses the rules to assert their authority”. It’s more of a “blank mask”—a fake layer of emptiness and neutrality under which you find malice and scorn.
Hm, that’s not what it implies to me. My impression of it is “denial of human interface” which is most saliently mediated by faces (incl. eye-contact and speech). Things are still going on behind the face, but you are denied the human interface with that. Nothing about following rules blindly, if anything it’s more about using the rules as a shield to prevent such access. So it feels like a good term to me.
I think “blankface” just isn’t a good word for what that describes. It implies: emptiness and lack of will. Intuitively, I would expect “blankface” to mean “a person who follows the rules or the conventions blindly and refuses to think about the implications”. A flesh automaton animated by regulations.
What it means instead is “a person who puts on the appearance of following the rules, but instead uses the rules to assert their authority”. It’s more of a “blank mask”—a fake layer of emptiness and neutrality under which you find malice and scorn.
Hm, that’s not what it implies to me. My impression of it is “denial of human interface” which is most saliently mediated by faces (incl. eye-contact and speech). Things are still going on behind the face, but you are denied the human interface with that. Nothing about following rules blindly, if anything it’s more about using the rules as a shield to prevent such access. So it feels like a good term to me.