This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
Rules
Apr
14
2021
Complete this phrase: Rules were made to be ________
Did you think “broken”? If so, no hard feelings, but you’re wrong. I guess most modern Americans would complete that phrase that way, probably without even thinking about it. For some reason that phrase has stuck.
But it isn’t right.
Rules were made to be followed. That’s kind of the point of rules. Rules were made to keep things working well, keep you safe, and prevent problems.
Gee thanks dad, for that life lesson. That’s just the background information; that’s not the whole blog post – stick with me for a bit.
If your first instinct is to try to break the rules, then you’ve been trained wrong and life will be more difficult than it needs to be. Not that rules can never be broken, but now we need to delve into some nuances.
I’d like to remove the word “rules” and use “laws” and “guidelines” instead – split the term into those two general categories. If you think of rules that way, then it helps to understand when you could try to break them.
People have used the term “rule” in such phrases as “rule of thumb” or “unspoken rules”. I would put those into the category of guidelines rather than laws. A rule of thumb is a guideline that you follow if you don’t really know what you’re doing, or you do know what you’re doing and thus you know it’s not worth spending time to do a proper analysis on this minor part of the project.
Also unspoken rules aren’t real rules.
There are other rules that would fit better in the category of laws – things that are prohibited for a reason. Things such as “no glass in the pool area” or “fire door – keep closed”. If you know the reason for the law, you understand that it doesn’t make sense to try to break them because nothing good can come of it.
But guidelines, on the other hand, if you know the reason for the guideline then it helps you to know when not to follow the guidelines. Things such as “don’t go swimming within 30 minutes of eating” are good ideas but once you know it’s to prevent cramps from strenuous exercise with a full stomach, you know you can splash in a pool right after having a snack. Some people might call that breaking a rule, but I don’t like that phrase because it gives people the attitude that they know better than the rules in general, thus it diminishes the law-types of rules.
And I do believe there can be a time for breaking law-types of rules, but that requires a consideration of risk vs. reward (or consequence of breaking the rule vs. consequence of following the rule). An example would be breaking traffic laws in the case of a medical emergency – is that right or wrong?
In summary: if you don’t know what you’re doing and why, then just follow the rules.
The integrity of the upright will guide them, But the perversity of the treacherous will destroy them.
Proverbs 11:3
This little article thingy was written by Some Guy sometime around 6:22 am and has been carefully placed in the Life category.
April 16th, 2021 at 12:30 am
I usually divide things into malum in se or malum prohibitum, if you want the fancy Latin categories. If it’s malum prohibitum, then it’s a purely cost/benefit analysis for me. I will break every traffic law I feel like, as long as it doesn’t endanger others or put me at a risk of a ticket that is higher than I want (the risk, that is; I want no level of ticket). I will feel no guilt at ignoring a required form if I can get away with it. In the olden days, only a very few things that everyone knew were bad were felonies. Now we all commit “three felonies a day.” Now, no one can even count the criminal rules we’re subject to, since there’s too many to keep track of.
The best “rule” is old-school prudence. That allows for self-governance. Otherwise you end up with rules acting pedagogically. Which means we’re getting our values from politicians and technocrats. So maybe the modern version is, “Rules were made to be too often an arbitrary imposition of power over the freedom of the individual and local community…and therefore ignored liberally.”
But I have rules telling me which direction to loop my belt and what kind of people I’m allowed to talk to. So I’m a little more sensitive to things that people call rules. In my world, “guidelines” end up being rules.