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Mavericks are OK

Entry 2239, on 2022-09-24 at 20:31:06 (Rating 2, Comments)

Most people's initial impression is that rule breakers are the cause of most of the world's problems, but recently I have seen some commentary suggesting the opposite.

For example, there's this one, attributed to Banksy: "The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules" and this one, which is anonymous: "Who knows why we were taught to fear the witches, and not those who burned them alive".

The suggestion is that people following just "doing what they are told" are a bigger cause of crimes, atrocities, and violence than people who simply do what they think is right.

I think it is undeniable that people following the orders of corrupt societies or of immoral leaders can cause a lot of harm. After all, this is essentially what causes war: people following the orders of the leader of their nation.

After World War II many Nazi war criminals were put on trial and a common excuse for committing atrocities was that they were just following orders. In fact, after the trials this became known as the Nuremberg Defence (or "just following orders"), after the city the trials were held in.

What would have happened in World War II if the German people had refused to go for war on the orders of a demented dictator? What would have happened if the initial aggressors in any war, such as the current one in Ukraine, had done the same thing?

On the other hand, what would have happened if the British, and their allies, people refused the orders to defend the countries Nazi Germany attacked? Hitler would never have been defeated and Europe (at least) would have become part of a new German empire. The same applies to the Ukrainian people defending their country against the Russian invaders.

My answer is that the defenders in the two cases I mentioned above are self-motivated and most didn't need to be ordered to fight for those causes; they knew that it was an unfortunate but necessary action they had to take.

So there are rules which are created for good reasons, but those rules tend to cover the type of thing any reasonable, moral person would agree with anyway. And the people who would prefer to ignore the rules probably aren't going to be particularly effective performing under duress. For example, it seems clear that most of the Russian soldiers in Ukraine really don't want to be there.

So a person who refuses to follow the rules is often a hero, not a criminal. And we all recognise true criminals whatever the rules say. For example, a corporation which uses a lot of dirty tricks to avoid paying tax, even though they are technically following the law, would often to be seen as more criminal than an individual who deliberately avoids paying a small amount by doing work for cash, even if that is technically illegal.

And a Russian soldier who refuses to fight against his neighbours is breaking the Russian laws, but many would see him as more of a hero than someone who obeys and fights in Ukraine.

Like all social issues, it's not as simple as that, of course. There are plenty of laws where it makes perfect sense to insist that they should be followed, or society might break down (more than it is already). But whatever the law is, there will always be cases where it is more moral to break them and do the "right thing" instead.

Now, I have to say that I am very uncomfortable with the phrase "the right thing" because that is used to support many causes where what actually is the right thing is very much a matter of opinion, and that's the big weakness of my support for rule breaking.

So I need to return to my common theme on these issues: that nuance is required. Breaking rules is not automatically the right thing to do, just like following the rules isn't either. All I would say is that just because someone broke a law we shouldn't assume they are a bad person. It could just as easily be that they are refusing to submit to a bad law which would lead to significant harm if it was followed.

But we should also not necessarily admire rule breakers either, so it needs to be looked at on a case by case basis, which gets back to a theme I have explored before: that rules, laws, and policies are great as guidance, but should not be assumed to be always the best course of action. The classic quote, "Laws are for the guidance of wise men and the blind obedience of fools" is over 2500 years old, so this is not a new topic!

I have seen an interesting political phenomenon regarding this recently. In the past, people from the left were usually the rule breakers, but now they as often as not insist on others following the rules. This was evident during the, often quite draconian, rules imposed during the COVID pandemic. Lefties insisted on following the rules to the letter, but conservatives and (especially) libertarians were more likely to see them as an unnecessary restriction on freedoms and to ignore or avoid them. Mask wearing and vaccination were probably the two areas where this was most obvious.

I think those rules were made with good intentions, at least in most cases, but I would still recommend them as guidelines rather than absolute rules. In fact, the mandatory nature of the rules was what caused some people to object ot them so much. Ironically, if they had been recommendations only, more people might have voluntarily accepted them.

I think that, for most people, it is usually best just to follow the rules except when there is a really good reason not to, just to make life easier and to maintain social cohesion. But there have to be limits where refusing to follow rules is actually seen as the moral course.

So don't automatically assume the rule breakers are bad people. Often the ones who just automatically do what they are told are really the dangerous ones. And mavericks are OK!

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