Some of the worst advice that we have all received is “follow the rules.”
Many people, like our parents, told it to us in good faith; if you follow the rules and do your job, good things will happen and you will stay safe.
It is, after all, the same advice they received from their parents; it is treated as a universal truth.
The problem is that rules are inherently designed to keep things exactly the way they are.
After all, rules were created by people who hold the power, and people who hold the power want things to stay the same so that they hold on to power.
Want to make a change in the world?
Stop following the damn rules.
We are conditioned through nearly every social construct to follow the rules set before us and never question them – education, religion, sports, games, they all require people to accept and follow a set of rules.
Rules are written specifically to ensure that there is some semblance of order and predictability, because as long as there is order and predictability, there is stability, and as long as there is stability, the people at the top stay at the top.
Rules exist to prevent anyone or anything from significantly impacting the status quo.
Tired of the way our political system mistreats and ignores so many of the people it is supposed to represent?
Following the “rules” of our political system is only going to perpetuate the problem.
Want to see more wealth in the hands of the lower and middle classes?
The economic and business rules that we blindly follow are set up to benefit the people at the top (i.e. the people who made the rules), not at the bottom.
Fed up with the political and sociological response to climate change and the general lack of urgency on the issue from anyone with any sort of power to make a difference?
The rules of polite society will never allow a forceful response to the climate crisis so long as we play by those rules.
Letter writing, attending protests, writing posts on social media, all of these actions play within the rules of our existing political system and will not change a thing.
No one who has ever instituted large-scale change did so by playing according to the rules of the existing power base.
I am not advocating breaking the law; there is a huge difference between breaking the law and breaking the social rules that are neither enforced nor implemented except through social norms.
But if you are dissatisfied with the status quo and want to see an improvement, then it’s time to throw out the rule book and play a different game altogether.
In my next post, I will discuss how political systems can afford to ignore you as long as you play by their rules.