abstract
| - It's safe to say that society as we know it couldn't exist without rules. Without rules, power would be the only source of order in the world, either in terms of destructive capability or material resources. And like any tool that can be used for the common good, rules have the potential to be abused. Rules have power, and their ability to level the playing field can also be used to unbalance it in favor of whomever makes the rules in the first place. So what can you do? You can always break the law, but the more clever will figure out how to beat them at their own game. There are two ways this can happen: 1.
* The rules can hang you, but the rules can also save you. Obstructive Bureaucrats and the like may think of the rules as a hammer to crush unworthy peons with, but the people who wrote the rules may have had other ideas: an apparently mean-spirited and arbitrary rule might have a reasonable exception buried in its text that the tyrants in charge prefer to conveniently ignore. Alternately, the roles may be reversed, and a villain who apparently has been caught dead to rights by the authorities finds a convenient loophole to wriggle through. 2.
* The people who enforce the rules don't necessarily follow them. They may imagine themselves to be a higher class or more noble or pious or whatever, but in the end it's all because of the badge they wear or the title they hold: they're just as fallible as anyone else, and if these people insist that there's not a single rule they've ever broken, they can be sent screaming into a Villainous BSOD if someone finds that one obscure rule they did break, or points out a rule that they would never want to follow. (The more sociopathic might instead be compelled to dispose of whoever pointed out this fact, all to maintain their perfect record. Never mind that there are rules against murder in every culture on the face of the globe.) Again, this can have a dark side, as a paragon figure can be transformed into a Broken Pedestal if someone brings to light some transgression in his or her past. An easy way to subvert Can't Get Away with Nuthin'. See also Screw the Rules, I Have Money. Compare Screw The Rules I'm Doing What's Right and Chaotic Good, where Lawful and Good are on opposite sides, and Loophole Abuse. Any Rules Lawyer often uses the first variant, and is afraid of somebody using the second on him. Examples of 1:
|