Recently I’ve noticed a recurring TV ad narrated by a young man who claims, in a rather snarky voice, “Sometimes ya gotta break the rules.”
He offers no insight about which rules to break or how to break them, but he does imply that people who like to break rules should like the product he’s promoting (a fast car). Presumably, people who like to break rules identify with fast cars and young men with snarky voices.
The ad reminded me of recent news stories about rules that ISIS theologians have laid down regarding appropriate ways to rape captive women. Oddly, none of their rules prohibit rape itself as long as it’s carried out within the rules laid down by ISIS theologians.
That reminded me of all those rules in Leviticus about when to stone various rule-breakers and what kinds of burnt offerings are acceptable to a demanding deity.
So is it really good to follow rules when religious authorities say so, but also OK to break them on the say-so of a young man with a snarky voice on TV?
Most of us recognize the need for rules to regulate behavior, while also recognizing the historical importance of rule-breakers like Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Jesus of Nazareth.
Psychologists have offered some useful insights about rules. For example, a tenacious attachment to rules is a standard feature of the adolescent mind. As inexperienced youngsters approach adulthood and are expected to make civilized decisions, they tend to hold on tight to rules their role models live by, or at least the rules they preach.
Relying on rules to make decisions is sometimes called “conventional reasoning” because it depends on entrenched conventions and customs in the local culture. We call official written rules “laws,” and we punish people who break them. We call unofficial, unwritten rules “norms.” In many subcultures (adolescent tribes, religious cults, criminal gangs) group norms sometimes promote breaking the official laws of the larger culture.
Way back before Hammurabi and Moses introduced written laws, human tribes were governed by a “pre-conventional” approach based on the notion of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” That method resulted in general chaos and a whole lot of blind, toothless people.
Conventional reasoning enshrined in laws is a definite improvement, but laws themselves can be dysfunctional. In Nazi Germany, barbaric treatment of minority groups was perfectly legal. Until 1865 in the US, slave-holders were well within their legal rights, and they did not give up those rights without a long, bloody fight.
Psychologists also suggest that people nowadays have a fighting chance to achieve “post-conventional” reasoning based on wide-ranging understanding and empathy for other people. Empathy is actually hard-wired in normal, healthy children, and ultimately we all rely on lots of other people all the time. It can be difficult to empathize with people who live by different norms and practice different religions based on different sacred texts, but we are slowly getting better at it.
The only rule that expresses post-conventional reasoning is the Golden Rule: treat other people as you want them to treat you. It’s expressed in all the world’s mainstream religions, but even that rule has its limitations: it allows people who hate themselves to hate others and perhaps even kill them in a fit of suicidal redemption.
The Golden Rule is more a guideline than a rule, and it requires a certain level of maturity in the application, but it’s the best rule we’ve got, and it may always be.
