A life without rules seems terrifying.
Anyone could just take our life, freedom or possessions.
Criminal groups are the typical example of a life without rules; everybody do whatever they please, everyone is on guard because they never new who their enemy is, and just like in the animal kingdom – only the strongest survive.
The game without rules has only one goal, and that is to survive. If you want to win it, you must be ready to do anything.
Once the rules are removed, nothing makes sense, but having too many rules makes as little sense.
In modern society, there are so many rules that it’s impossible to learn them and avoid breaking them.
There are laws, the business rules, the rules about behaviours, traffic rules, grammar rules, each family has its own set of rules, there are rules in theaters, cinemas, schools, airplane boarding rules…
If one wishes to harm you, all they need to do is to study some rules and accuse you of breaking them and then you will pay for it either using your money or freedom, which is, you might notice, nonsense.
Why does someone need to pay the fine for going through the red light when the road was entirely empty?
From the beginning of civilization we were trying to set the fundamental rule of human behaviour; one which would solve all our problems, and we succeeded; we invented the golden rule and there are two shapes of it:
- One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself (positive or directive form).
- One should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated (negative or prohibitive form)
Something like a binary system, “0” and “1”, or “yes” and “no” in this case. Before we make a decision to do something we ask ourselves if we’d like that to be done to us.
If the answer is “yes”, then we do it, if the answer is “no”, we don’t do it.
As simple as that, but it’s been hard to follow.
Many wise men tried to implement this rule into the roots of human behaviour; Budha, Confucius, Ancient Greeks, Jesus, Muhammad, Immanuel Kant and many others, but for some reason, these two rules weren’t never enough and instead were always searching for the specifics which only brought more confusion.
It’s true that the modern life requires more rules than these two; it’s much easier to regulate the traffic if we say that we should all drive on the right side of the road, in a certain speed and only when the certain light is on, but even in that we can see the fundamental rule.
If you don’t want to be killed by a car, you mustn’t kill anyone else by your car.
It requires minimal intelligence to conclude that it’s safer to drive on the same side as everybody else, to be sober, not to look at your phone and not to intersect with anyone else’s path.
But do we really need rules such as – you can’t drive with your bare feet and you must fasten your seatbelt?
Unfortunately, people can’t be trusted when they are required to decide whether their decision might harm someone else.
Parents and teachers should teach children to make these rational decisions, but at home or at school, we are taught to be obedient and follow the rules.
When we reach a certain age, the society expects us to make certain decisions by ourselves, but we’re unable because each chance of practicing something like that was taken from us, and thus we have that many rules.