It is absurd to read it as a preference for some other arbitrary system that was not on the table. (slaw.ca)
Born in 1944 in Charleston, South Carolina, he uses text, grids, images and musical scores to create conceptual works that interrogate many common, yet arbitrary systems of meaning. (studiointernational.com)
But if, on the other hand, we refuse to regard human socialization as anything more than a chance arrangement, a modus vivendi lacking all power of internal growth, then (excepting, at the most, a few elementary rules safeguarding the living - space of the individual) we find the whole structure of politico - economico - social relations reduced to an arbitrary system of conventional and temporary expedients. (religion-online.org)