Theos-Talk Archives (September 1997 Message tl00055)

Chuck wrote:

>Rules serve only to create control mechanisms for people.  Those who like >to promulgate them do so only because of the pleasure they get out of
>controlling other people, no matter what the psuedo-spiritual garbage they
>may try to cloak them in.  The only way to deal with such people is to break
>their rules and flaunt that breaking in their presence.

There is a time to oppose authority, but this is only part of the
story.  Rules, at a certain point in one's growth, are better than the
freedom of spontaneity.  If I was entirely free to brush my teeth, and
I did so only spontaneously and on the spur of the moment, I would
irregularly brush my teeth.  With a fixed rule, I am more likely to
brush them regularly.  In learning a skill, it is generally better to
follow the instructor's rules than to do it one's own way.  Rules are
needed for order.  There are many examples of its being better that
people work together in a coordinated way, in which situations rules
are necessary in order to avoid chaos.  Neither anarchy nor tyranny
are ideals, but a certain mixture of both is.