Rules are for other people

Getting over the drama of disobedience

Words & images © Paul Ransom

You probably know this person. One minute they decry all rules, regarding them as an onerous imposition on their freedom, yet the moment anyone transgresses against them they cry foul and call the cops. Perhaps they are an adult version of the schoolyard bully you remember, the one who ran bawling to the teacher as soon as someone dared to give them a dose of their own medicine.  

You may now be tempted to scoff at such hypocrisy; yet this would be an easy condemnation. (Hypocritical, no less.) Look in the mirror. There you will see the pattern repeated. To some extent we all have a vexed relationship with rules, whether they be law or lore, compulsory or customary. Although the vast majority of us never lapse into murder, rape or urinating on public transport – and remain thankful for this – we commonly harbour beliefs that bestow upon us a loosely defined but somehow deserved right to break any rule that does not suit.

If you feel I am accusing you here, or pretending to be a cleanskin, let me at once plead guilty. Like most people I know, I have broken the law, flouted unwritten rules, and disregarded various social customs and niceties – and I will surely do so again. However, far from being stranded in rebel fantasy or delusions of particular exceptionality, I like to believe that I operate in an ongoing dialogue with the rules of the game. Happy to play along for the most part, yet sometimes preferring to deviate.

This does not make me a hopeless sinner or heroic individualist, merely human, with all the flawed judgement and bias that implies.

Much as I might indulge a slew of self-serving habits and highly personal narratives, I am also thankful for the framework of external rules that make my life liveable, and with age I have learned to choose my battles with greater clarity. Nowadays, I am largely content to serve the master who serves me. Because, in the main, the rules continue to allow me a fair amount of freedom.  

• Unlike some in my circle, I have thus far resisted the lure of the holy warrior pose, and do not advertise an ‘awake’ status that grants me the righteous privilege of disobedience or anoints me as one of the newly self-elected cohort of citizen sages. As such, I am neither a libertarian dick-waver nor a poison world paranoiac wedded to a cult-like ideology of reflexive refusal and impending doom. 

As a social species, we have always lived with rules. Long before nation states and politicians, tribal elders policed individual and group action and punished perceived breaches. Human societies have embraced and enforced orthodoxies of both belief and behaviour across time and location. Although hyper-individualist rhetoric insists this is both a recent and fundamentally bad invention, we have a long and pragmatic tradition of lawmaking.

Furthermore, we are not the only social animals to have rules of engagement. Zoom out from the Anthro-bubble and you will see evidence of a rules-based biosphere. Indeed, one could argue that ‘rules’ are a necessary adaptation, allowing certain species to leverage the advantages of group cohesion.  

Perhaps more than any other, our species has benefited from a combination of collective effort and social contracts. The development of complex language is a standout example of a shared and rule-driven human response to the challenges presented by an uncertain, competitive, and sometimes dangerous world.¹

However, it is likewise clear that we have over-indulged our passion for predictability and the security it promises. As such, we have a long and bloodied record of stifling orthodoxy, absolutist intolerance and tyranny. Meanwhile, officiousness and pedantry abound, and the civil litigation industry continues to exploit both the letter and the spirit of the law for ongoing profit. We frequently use rules as an excuse for refusal, inflexibility, avoidance, predatory practise, cutting down rivals, and a zillion other acts of cruelty, pettiness and greed. How many have suffered and died in accordance with our various laws?

It is a no-brainer to suggest that rules are a double edged sword – which is why we would be better served by a more mature discussion of their role in our lives. The ever-shifting terrain of human societies requires more of us than either slavish obedience or self-righteous rebel drama.

• Speaking of maturity, or rather, our shared lack of such, check out Whatever Happened To Adult Conversation? elsewhere on this site.   

Finding a balance between liberty and civility is not a job for blunt prescription. Neither is the current vogue for ideological catechism the best way to debate the weighing up of individual and social goods. Somewhere between those who require proof of an umpteenth Covid booster and those who prefer to douse you in a shower of their snot is a fine line.

Yet, here we run up against the problem of either/or thinking. In a sense, rules themselves are a clarion example of this, especially when codified in law. Once written down they become liable to semantic reinterpretation and myriad loopholes. Ironically, our pursuit of moral and legal clarity often results in further ambiguity.  

Partly this is because we all seek to advance our own interests, and we are in the habit of doing so in ways that privatise benefit while socialising cost. The same can be said for tribalised interests, where in-groups seek advantage in ways that adversely impact out-groups. Good though we are at devising rules, we are even better at bending them to our will.

Conversely, we also love to clothe our preferences and practises in the respectable garb of law and tradition – citing the rule when it suits us, breaking it when it does not.

Much of this is unconscious, or a side effect of the ordinary pursuit of self-interest. What’s more, smart policing understands and allows this. Apply the law topically, dextrously, rather than with heavy handed mechanistic insensitivity.

So often it is the nature of the exception that underwrites the legitimacy of the rule.

Unfortunately – despite how obvious much of the above seems – what we are presently witnessing across the ideological spectrum is a barely pubescent attitude to the phenomenon of rules. Much of the commonly shared ‘freedom movement’ complaint resembles the standard ‘you can’t tell me what to do’ whinge of the average twelve year old. (While adolescents have a cognitive and experiential excuse for their egocentrism, the predominantly middle-aged, comfortably situated Westerners who like to bore me with their know-it-all jihadi theatrics may well benefit from an overdue episode of growing up.)

That said, there is a pivotal role for dissent. Orthodoxy should be confronted, authority held accountable, and herdthink disrupted. The challenges arising from a world that is both increasingly connected and disconnected, (where resource constraint, socio-economic fracturing and biospheric changes are asking serious and potentially existential questions of us), cannot be sensibly addressed by a retreat into cultish certainty or crusader entitlement. The best response to dirty bath water is to take out the plug, not throw out the baby. Simply replacing the tyranny of order with the tyranny of chaos is less paradigm shift, more suicide.

Some will surely disagree – label me a fool or sleeping sheep – but I for one am daily thankful for the edifice of rules that bind societies together in a network of civil reciprocity. I like it that I don’t need an armed escort to go to the shops. Nor do I need to live behind razor wire or adopt a fortress mentality. Even though I have oft departed from class, gender and other cultural norms, and sometimes railed against standard practise, I remain willing to sign the social contract.

If, in return for a fair measure of compliance, I get running water, the freedom to opine online without the threat of gulags, and the ability to walk at night with only a tiny likelihood of being mugged, count me in. Bargain!

Point being, the rules are not just for other people – and when I shift my focus from narrow and immediate self-interest and divorce the drama of my own supposedly sacred rights, I see clearly how I too am responsible for the ongoing viability of human (humane) society.²

I do not demand that you respect me, nor legally require you to. Instead, I offer it to you in the belief that you may return it. Only if you repeatedly play unfairly would I contemplate asking the ref to blow the whistle – although in truth I would more likely cut you adrift, if only because I prefer to enjoy the game of life with those who understand that we share the arena.   

PS: I have previously addressed related themes on this site. See Us vs Us and/or The Doubt Manifesto.

1: Opinions differ on the extent to which the human rule making response emerged from a prior, innate moral sense, or whether they arose as a more practical, survivalist tool designed to bolster/maintain group function and mediate disputes between individual members. In addition, there are questions about the evolutionary utility of ethics. In a complex social species, equally complex moral codes may be necessary to underpin workable (predictable) patterns of personal, intra & inter-tribal relations. Could it be that our penchant for rules reflects an even deeper desire for a measure of certainty and control?          

2: Humans are psycho-emotionally complex social/hierarchical animals and, as such, have always needed solutions to the problems associated with social organisation. How do we assign and manage the various roles and activities needed to ensure both group and individual survival? How can we mediate disputes between group members and accommodate rival interests? How do we strike a viable balance between rights and responsibilities? What is the best mix of the risks of innovation and the benefits of repeatable and reliable practise? In addition, since tight knit clans have become super-size cities and countries, we need workable mechanisms of ensuring civil relations between strangers. However we choose to approach these problems, it behoves us to remember that today’s compromise may not work tomorrow, and that in lieu of a final solution we need to resist the fix of absolutist ideology and its tendency to lurch into other-blaming and cruelty.