Breaking the Rules for Good
Being anti-authority can be a powerful part of doing the right thing
“I won’t do what you tell me!” The words of Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name Of resonated through my car. I smiled, thinking about how despite the song’s popularity at the time, my younger self would have recoiled at the message. Swearing (especially the f-word) and rejecting authority? Yikes. But now? Now, I get it. I get how that attitude can be used for good. And I give a lot of credit to my kids for that expanded understanding.
As a kid, I wanted to be an activist. I had a little lemonade-style stand where I sold ridiculous pom-pom crafts to raise money for environmental organizations. It was called Planet in Peril. I idolized the leaders of the Civil Rights movement, wishing that I had been born in a different age where I could stand up for justice. (Little did I realize the curse of that!)
But while I liked civil disobedience in theory, I couldn’t imagine myself breaking the rules on purpose. I was the type of autistic kid who takes the rules Very Seriously and informs both kids and adults of when they are breaking them. Rules just made the world make sense! Even when they didn’t make sense or were outright wrong, breaking them on purpose - oooof. I wasn’t sure if I could handle that.
As I got older, I became more and more used to being able to bend or even break unjust rules. I even took training on civil disobedience skills for protests. However, my default was still to follow the rules, without questioning the underlying principles.
But then my kids came along. From the time they could talk, they both questioned everything. They wanted to know why the rules were the way they were, who made them, what was the point and so on and so on. I never wanted to be the mom who said “because I said so!”, so I didn’t. Honestly, I wanted to know those things too!
While I didn’t trust my motherly intuition much, that decision was dead-on. It turns out that my older kid’s brain is built in a way that whenever he has a demand put on him, his first instinct is “no.” It takes energy to get over that no to a yes. Since authority figures are usually the ones telling you what to do, he has a built-in tendency towards anti-authority. Explaining the why behind rules and requirements makes that demand a little easier and that difference in power a little less challenging.
From teaching and learning from my kids, I’ve taken on much more of a tendency to question the rules or commands from those in power. These days, when the people in power are tearing up useful, good institutions and demanding the passage of rules that reinforce injustice, this is a more important skill than ever.
In addition, embracing compassion-based morality is essential to building a more just and kind society. Rule-based morality centers the idea that if a rule does harm to you or others, you just have to suck it up. It enforces the idea that a rule and those who follow it are Good and those who don’t fit in the boxes those rules create are Bad. As a result, rule-based morality always ends up harming everyone, with the most harm to marginalized folks.
If like me, you struggle with being a little bit too much of a rule-follower, there are some ways you can stretch those “I won’t do what you tell me!” skills. All of them involve practicing in low-risk situations.
The first is play acting those skills. Because it’s a game, you can be whoever you want to be. As Kurt Vonnegut said, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” I’m a table-top role player, having participated in Dungeons and Dragons and similar games for years. My last two characters have purposely had a chaotic orientation, as opposed to a lawful one. My current one is a rabbit-person who is the grown-up version of the little girl rabbit Tagalong in the animated Robin Hood movie. Being an idealistic rogue who robs from the rich and gives to the poor gives me the chance to put myself in the headspace of that type of person, even if it’s playing against type.
If you don’t play tabletop or live action role playing games, you can also try a little of it while playing with your kids. Kids tend towards chaos anyway, so embrace that in play as much as you can.
Another option is to mindfully consume media that questions societal rules. Tweaking and poking at societal rules is the heart of trickster stories, for example. Of course, stories of heroes rebelling against a dystopian government are often inspiring, whether that’s The Hunger Games or Parable of the Sower. Non-fiction about civil disobedience is especially relevant at the moment.
But one type of story that I think is powerful but often gets short shrift are stories that are less about physical rebellion and more about embracing radical kindness. In these stories, the main characters put compassion above societal structures. Perhaps not surprisingly, two of my favorite television shows fall in this category: The Good Place and Steven Universe. The Good Place wrestles with the idea of what it even means to be good in a world full of systemic injustice (hint - it’s not following rules, as much as character Chidi Anagonye wishes it was). In contrast, Steven Universe contemplates how to be loving when the people you love turn out to be more complicated than you could ever expect. As my friend Jenny talks about in both a masterful analysis of the final episode and in a panel she did at the Connecticon convention, Steven Universe has a radical embrace of the “other.” Deeply valuing and even prioritizing people who don’t fit into cultural roles inherantly conflicts with societal rules.
By not just reading or watching these stories, but analyzing and reflecting on them, we can consider how we can embrace such radical kindness in our own lives. They’re also a wonderful door into discussing these topics with our kids. Watching Steven Universe with our eight and eleven year old has been a great point of connection and discussion. I hope to share The Good Place with them when they’re older.
Another way to build a mindset of purposefully breaking unjust rules is called anarchist calisthenics. Just like physical exercises help your body gain flexibility and stamina, mental exercises help you gain the ability to think in new ways. Anthropologist James C. Scott came up with the term “anarchist calisthenics” to describe exercises that work to break people out of the hierarchies and restrictions of an unjust society.
One form of anarchist calisthenics is to break a law or even just a rule that doesn’t make any sense. Personally, I usually don’t break rules that are merely illogical, but may if they’re harmful or dangerous. For example, you aren’t supposed to ride a bicycle on the sidewalk in certain sections of Washington D.C. Yet there are a number of roads without bike lanes where there’s so much traffic that it’s dangerous to take the lane. Meanwhile, there are wide sidewalks that are just fine for riding on as long as you do so slowly. As much as it pained me to do it, the other day I rode on the sidewalk for about half a mile and then switched to a bike lane when I could.
In the article, Scott notes that part of breaking rules is being aware of when and how you are doing so. You don’t want to cause harm to others in the process. In the case of sidewalk riding, I did so because there wasn’t a good alternative and rode slowly enough that I wasn’t a risk to pedestrians.
As you go about your life, think about the things you do because you “should” and whether that “should” is justified or not. Is that action rooted in kindness and respect for others? Or just an arbitrary standard created to reinforce power hierachies and keep people in their place? Deciding the answers to those questions and practicing what to do when it’s the latter can help us be ready to face even the most difficult of moral choices. It can also help us be models for our kids when they may have to do the same.
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