When Should We Follow the Rules and When Should We Change Them?
By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)
The biggest fight my husband and I ever had was over Battlestar Galactica.
I know. We’ve now jumped to the very top of the nerd list because most couples argue over the really important things like money or children or whether the in-laws should be allowed to dictate what color they paint their guest room.
But the truth is, we weren’t really arguing about Battlestar Galactica. We were arguing about a theme in it.
When things go wrong, do you stick to the traditional way of doing things, the traditional rules, or do you innovate and rewrite the rules?
The premise of Battlestar Galactica is that humans created Cylons to serve them, but the Cylons rebelled. Years later, the Cylons returned to the human planets and destroyed all 12 colonies. Less than 50,000 human beings survived. Now they’re running from the Cylons, living on a convoy of ships, protected entirely by one battlestar—Galactica.
In other words, life as they know it will never be the same.
Which raised an understandable dilemma for the leaders of the survivors about what was the best way to preserve the species. And that’s where things in my house went sideways.
An episode came on where an officer and an enlisted man whose relationship had been overlooked previously were ordered to stop seeing each other. I thought it was stupid to maintain rules and regulations against fraternization because, as President Roslin said, the only way the human race was going to survive was if people started having babies. My husband thought it was more important than ever in that situation to maintain rules and regulations against fraternization.
And while the issue of fraternization was what kicked the argument off, what we were really arguing about was if rules should ever be changed, and if so, when.
My husband is a former Marine. He’s also a traditionalist. So when he received an order to jump, he didn’t ask how high. He just jumped. And if things are going wrong, he believes that’s the moment when you should stick even more closely to the ways that have worked in the past.
And I could see his point. In a combat situation, you can’t hesitate to follow an order or you and everyone with you might die.
But I didn’t agree that the old rules and old ways of doing things are necessarily the best way. Someone has to earn my respect before I follow them, and I need to understand the logic behind a rule before I obey it. When something stops working, I look for a new way.
You can see how this fundamentally put us at odds. We’ve had to agree to disagree and can even joke about it now, but the question remains.
Is there ever a time when we need to change the rules? If so, when?
(And if you disagree with me that sometimes the rules should be changed, don’t be afraid to say so. I welcome disagreement here as long as it’s respectful.)
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Apr 15, 2013 @ 11:04:31
While I’m all for order and discipline, in the setting of Battlestar Galactica (huge fan), such is only relevant at the start of their journey. My logic here is that, why would a species on the brink of extinction willingly keep what are likely their most physically fit specimens from breeding, solely to maintain a now irrelevant code of conduct? The colonies are gone. The official government they have chosen to support is saying, “we breed or we die.” There is a constant need for more people to fill the spots of those who fall. I’m actually surprised that they did not have mandatory breeding.
So, yes, Marcy, I have to agree with you. Rules are set based on current conditions and when those conditions changes then the rules must adapt to the new reality. What could be more human than that?
Great post.
Apr 15, 2013 @ 13:04:12
Hi Marcy,
Depends on the rules, of course. If Washington, Bolivar, and San Martin hadn’t broken the rules, most of North America and South America would still belong to Europe. That leads to the idea that an unquestioning and blind following of rules can be wrong, either morally or historically.
I have known many military people (a revered uncle was a marine in the Pacific Theater during WWII, for example, and I worked with many others over the years) and have had a few conversations about blindly following orders. On one hand, that was the cop out for leading Jews to the camps in WWII. On the other, not one person I talked to ever said (or admitted to, if you like) blindly following orders. Either the orders made sense (no viable alternative or an alternative that was as good as any other), or the person giving them was one who commanded respect and had a rep for good decisions, or both.
The original Galactica was less profound than the most recent one, which brought in many “moral issues” because “the enemy” often had human form. They were machine versions of us. Rules designed to enforce moral choices can become debatable, as we know from current cultural wars in the U.S. Wearing a seat belt is common sense. Supporting same-sex marriage has moral overtones for many that are hard to separate from common sense. Agreeing to disagree might not be the best policy as many of these so-called rules do need logical, not emotional, debate.
All the best,
Steve
Apr 15, 2013 @ 13:18:02
I’ve never been a big fan of doing things the way we’ve always done them, just because we’ve always done them that way. I think rules absolutely need to be re-evaluated as time passes and circumstances change. What works for us as a rule today might not work at all 20 years from now, or 30, or 100. Yes, I’d have thought they would encourage any and all attempts at mating, just to get the population up.
I do understand why your husband would argue the other side though. It’s a military thing to stress rules and order above all else. And I can see how in combat situations that is vital for survival (not to mention the people going into battle tend to be young and the last thing you want in battle is a bunch of 18 year olds all headed off in their own directions and doing their own thing).
I suppose what I’m saying is there’s a time and a place for everything, even following or breaking the rules. If the “rules” were always followed, innovation would never happen. Advances of all kinds, even creativity itself, depend on seeing things in a new way and breaking the typical boundaries.
Understand I’m talking here of arbitrary man-made rules, not rules like “don’t murder people”. Some rules should always be followed, but I think a lot of arguments (and even wars) center around just which ones are vital to follow and which ones aren’t.
This reminds me of that commercial (really old one) that used to intone to the little kid coloring with crayons “stay within the lines. The lines are our friends.” Oh what a dreary world if we always stayed within the lines.
Apr 15, 2013 @ 14:47:38
I think you’re both right. (Typical Libra, right?) There’s a time and a place for everything. Rules give us structure and keep us safe, but blind adhearance to those rules without thought is ignorance. I’d say your husband even gives thought to following rules in combat…he just does it well in advance. “When a command comes down, I will obey because I will risk my life or the lives of those around me if I don’t.” See? A conscious analysis was made. But that’s just my opinion. 🙂
Apr 15, 2013 @ 15:10:01
I think you make a really good point about how we don’t actually blindly follow rules. Most of the time, we probably have thought it through on some level (perhaps only subconsciously) and made a decision on how far we’ll go before we question. Great insight 🙂
Apr 15, 2013 @ 19:34:37
Interestingly, I’ve recently finished a rewatch of the entire BSG series … change is around us all the time. Look at how the ‘rules’ of publishing have changed and continue to do so. We must adapt to change or we will break, and be useful to on-one, including ourselves. This adaptation must include the evolution of our ethical compass so that we can sleep at night with an easy heart.
And as far as BSG goes, if that very rule hadn’t been broken then the child would never have been born who became the ‘mother’ of the human race!. By the end of the series, the survivors, chose to leave the old ways completely behind because they no longer fitted their present circumstances. But, notably they didn’t throw out their ethics with the bathwater … although I do have my suspicions about the influence Gaius Batlar’s genetic material is having on the world today!
Apr 15, 2013 @ 19:36:57
Even for the military, the rules are more in flux than his inflexibility implies. In World War 2, the Germans went for rigidly following orders, from top to bottom. US troops were more encouraged to think for themselves, and act upon their knowledge of the situation. And, at one point in recent US history, there were army classes in illegal orders that were not to be obeyed (orders to massacre civilians were not to be obeyed).
Ask your husband about those.
And, he’ll want to remember the orders given to the cavalry at Balaclava, to charge and take the guns, to prevent their removal. Part of the orders made no sense to the commander who received them. But, to the damnation of the reputation of Lord Raglan, the men who gave the order, the Brigade commanders obeyed them as best they was able.
Instead of attacking the artillery he couldn’t see, the Earl of Cardigan charged straight down the valley into the guns he could see, and inspired the poem, Charge of the Light Brigade:
“Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho'(though) the soldiers knew
Some one had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Apr 16, 2013 @ 03:56:40
I agree with Rhenna. Deciding to follow orders without question is still a decision, even though made in advance.
Apr 16, 2013 @ 12:34:30
I hadn’t looked at it that way before she said it, but I agree as well.
Apr 16, 2013 @ 11:23:16
I am someone who lives by rules, usually my own. I have even been nicknamed “Rules” behind my back. In a loving way, of course. 🙂 And, at first I thought I was like your husband, I am very obidient and I do what I am told. But you really shined the light on an important part of that, the IF. If I respect someone, then I will do what they tell me to. Yes, this may give my friends and family a lot of power in my life, but I choose those people VERY carefully. (Well, my family chose me, but I am lucky that they are amazing. That’s one of the perks of not having to rely on genetics to determine family.) That isn’t really the question you asked, but it is really important to me that I now understand that key factor. I don’t do what anybody says, I do what the important people say because I know they have my best interests at heart and I can’t see clearly when I am in the middle of something. Ok, anything.
For your question, I would tend to agree with you. If something isn’t working, you need to try something else. All those rules are part of what got the humans into the situation they are in, so they obviously need new rules. And if people only have relationships with people like them and in their own status, that will bring about a stunted gene pool. That is never a good thing. 🙂
And, you and your husband aren’t the only ones who fight over trivial things. I once had a fight with a (now) ex-boyfriend about the difference between reggeaton and latin hip-hop. And my BFF had a fight so intense with her hubby over the number of continents on the planet that I had to come and get her for some girl time. He still yells, “The Indian sub-continent” if anyone brings it up. 🙂
Apr 16, 2013 @ 12:34:05
I think the fact that I am good at following rules when I respect the person laying them down and see the logic in the rule is why a lot of people wouldn’t suspect me of taking the stance that I do. For example, I was always a well-behaved child who rarely got in trouble in school. I really liked almost all my teachers growing up, and my school was generally fair. I don’t think I’d do as well in a lot of work environments though, where the boss isn’t always someone you can respect and some of the rules are ludicrous 🙂
I read somewhere that fighting with your significant other occasionally is actually healthy because it shows you both still care enough to fight. I think it’s true 🙂
Apr 17, 2013 @ 01:19:20
Having been in the army (tell your husband “Oh-Rah!”) I get the fraternization issue and why there’s a rule against it. I was in a unit where the first sergeant was racist (not the way you just pictured it) and he had his own cliques of people who he favored. It wrecked the unit completely. No one trusted him, and worse, all of those soldiers eventually left for other units with normal transfers and took those experiences with them.
But at the same time, I’m a rule breaker when it comes to writing. I don’t buy “You can’t do that. It’s a rule,” which I do see on message boards, or “They can break that rule because they’re published.” Or my ‘favorite’ — “You have to know the rules to break the rules,” because there’s never any definition of when you are supposed to know these mysterious rules. The problem is the minute you break any rule, you’re immediately treated as if you are a rank amateur who doesn’t know what they’re doing. Tonight, I was reading a post on a message board where a published writer (who was from a different culture and published in a different country) was accused of “getting away with breaking the rules.” Honestly, if you have a good reason and do it well, throw out the rule book.
Apr 17, 2013 @ 13:18:11
Ah, to writing…and breaking the rules there. The problem with rules for prose is that many of them aren’t rules, but conventions. Not ending with prepositions, for example–too many sentences become awkward when you don’t end them with a preposition, especially in dialog. Another example, the split infinitive: “To boldly go where no one has gone before” would not have the same ring to it if you tried to fix up that split infinitive (I’ve made it a wee bit more PC compared to the original). These examples and many others are not rules but some pompous grammarian’s dogma.
MY RULE: ignore the rules. If it “sounds good” (storytelling is more of an oral tradition than many writers realize), makes common sense in your storytelling (plotting, characterization, etc), and does NOT confuse the reader (that’s a problem with the overuse of street jargon and other slang, for example), YOU MIGHT BE OK. The problem is that it might sound good to you and not many others, of course (I reviewed a book where the author had to name each character spoken to in each new piece of dialog–maybe he talked like that?). Some rules serve as guidelines in that sense. An author needs to know about suggestions for handling POV, for example, because they can help avoid reader confusion. (Of course, you can write stories like the screenwriters of Lost, where the goal was to confuse!)
All this is pretty mundane compared to what goes on in the fog of war. Rules on the battlefield are explicit and much more rigid because we’re talking about life and death situations. Writing a novel is hardly in the same league, unless you’re Rushdie.
r/Steve
Apr 17, 2013 @ 22:17:57
Tough argument, I can see why the tension. LOL. I think it’s difficult because for 90% of the population, whether they’re for change or not, the act of change is difficult. Meaning I would say there is a time for change and it’s worth giving things a try because at least you’ll learn from it, but the transition time and learning curve are always the hardest parts of that. Like me with Windows 8 right now. #HeadDesk
Apr 18, 2013 @ 05:24:35
I’m just glad that I don’t make the rules. Here’s my motto, “Ours is not to reason why, ours is just to do or die.” And if that doesn’t work…I’ll just have to find another reason. 🙂