Clarence Oddbody: The Rules Was Meant to Go By[1]

Monday, November 5, 2012

The Rules Was Meant to Go By[1]

Rules are liberating. This is counterintuitive, but it informs how we organize everything we do. Though rules provide a behavioral perimeter, the dangerous behaviors outside the perimeter far outnumber those we allow inside. Freedom comes from mutual agreement on where we draw the perimeter and the flexibility we allow inside it.[2]

(E.g., You can have sex with any consenting adult you like in the privacy of your own home, but you can't do it in your front window. You can stock a liquor cabinet in your house, but you can't sell liquor near a school. Society can't abide adolescent alcoholics, so we put factors contributing to adolescent alcoholism outside the perimeter. We know that if we don't do that, we'll have an entire society of damaged adults that can't run a business, a bank, or an assembly line.)

It's not if we draw lines, but where, and who decides, and what sensibilities they apply in their decisions, which will always in every case without fail come down to "what most people think is right most of the time," which is determined by shared instincts, social hierarchies, and ethical sensibilities.

Without an ethical sensibility (morality) that transcends instinct and hierarchy, there is no reason to adhere to majority will, because it's based only on the fear of failure or punishment, and if those can be avoided, rules become meaningless.

[1]
A quote from 1962's Mutiny on the Bounty, spoken by seaman Alexander Smith (actor Hugh Griffith). This was in response to Captain Bligh's indignation at being quoted regulations by a common sailor.

Fletcher Christian eventually led a mutiny against Capt. Bligh, and the real HMS Bounty was scuttled off Pitcairn Island. It was a Pyrrhic victory by real and fictionalized accounts that followed. Christian regretted it. It's a fantastic true story, and like all adventures at sea or in space or on other frontiers, it demonstrates the great cost when rules are broken. The safety of a ship, mission, and crew are always paramount, and mutiny has historically been severely punished. I sympathize with the mutineers, but the end of their story was a sad one - many sailors were hanged or drowned, and the surviving mutineers descended into anarchy and murder. Only one lived to tell about it, Alexander Smith, who's real name was John Adams.

[2]
Nothing new here. It's an old political philosophy I learned from Rousseau and a frequent lens through which religious philosophers sometimes examine Jesus (eg, freedom from Judaic law).

Some of you may know that the 1962 Mutiny on the Bounty with Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard is among my favorite movies of all time. The ship used in that movie sunk in open waters off the coast of North Carolina in Hurricane Sandy . One body has been found. The captain remains missing. The rest of the crew was rescued.

I heard Brian Williams say when reporting this on NBC Nightly News that the Bounty had no business being there. But many modern folks don't know that tall ships make for open water in storms so they won't be battered on shore. The Los Angeles Times even had an online poll, "Was it reckless for the HMS Bounty to set sail in the face of Hurricane Sandy?" 89% said yes.

That's like asking a bunch of heart surgeons their opinion on galvanized plumbing.