Of Rules and Why They Exist
There is a story I heard some time ago. The story was about some boulder that soldiers in a barracks were obligated to push every morning. For years and then decades, soldiers in the barracks performed the ritual on the boulder religiously.
Not until they had a new commander who enquired about Why the ritual was done. Only to find that it had something to do with the commander at the time the rule was made and was irrelevant in the present time.
The story above is severely paraphrased and has lost virtually all its details. However, it does well in opening this writing which is an enquiry into rules and why they exist.
Throughout human history, one of the things that has always differentiated higher civilizations and cultures was their ability to question things, question their culture, question nature, and even life itself. Out of these questions arise innovations, inventions, ideas, and discoveries that make life as good as we presently know it.
Rules exist for a reason. For example, one can say that the rule that stealing is punishable by imprisonment exists to uphold order in society, and even serve other purposes pertaining to the economy. One can also say that the rule that divorce is not allowed in Christianity serves the purpose of upholding the institution of marriage.
One consistent thing about the aforementioned rules is that one can find reasons and the basis upon which they exist. In other words, we can find justifications for having those rules.
For a rule to be justifiable and be agreed to be established, it must serve a purpose and lead to an end goal. There are different classifications we can give to rules. Some we can make now are preventive and purposeful.
A preventive rule exists to avoid undesirable outcomes in a situation. For example, at some point in our house, my dad gave the rule that whenever frying was done in the kitchen, I and my brother must leave. He made the rule after I suffered serious burns from hot oil.
A purposeful rule on the other hand is made to ensure that the purpose of a thing is achieved. For example, it is a rule in IFASA (Ife Architecture Students’ Association) that only a female can occupy the office of the Welfare director. While I am not fully aware of the intentions or considerations of the writers of the association’s constitution, I can infer that the purpose of that rule is to ensure female participation in the administration of the association.
It is important to scrutinise rules and the rationale behind them because rules are the basis upon which we act and consequently they influence, if not totally determine the outcomes we get.
While scrutinising a rule, the objective should not be to find faults in it or establish a basis to discard it, instead, rules should be scrutinised to honestly and holistically examine them in relation to set goals and how they affect or contribute to achieving those goals.
All the points made in this article hitherto are apparently only applicable in a democratic setting. Rules in non-democratic settings are made arbitrarily only to achieve the goal or wishes of the sole head.
Additionally, it is beneficial to scrutinise and examine rules not only to justify or falsify their rationale but because, in the very process of scrutinising a rule, other matters come to light, creating the chance of being addressed appropriately.
A very good example of the discourse on rules and why they exist is the voting age.
What is the rationale behind capping the voting age at 18? If you make the argument that people below the age of 18 do not have the capacity to hold opinions about electable officers, one who is scrutinising this rule will ask the question of why aged people with dementia have the right to vote.
This enquiry on rules and why they exist has become pertinent for me to make in light of the IFASA election and the question about what makes a vote invalid. Previous elections in the association have been greatly influenced by void votes.
Today, May 23 2023 an enquiry was made at the congress on what makes a vote valid or invalid. And why the rule for invalid votes exists in the first instance. As expected of the composition of the congress, being made up of intellectually sound individuals, different viewpoints and standpoints were made.
The purpose of the rule was established to be for ensuring conformity and orderliness in the election. Also, for the purpose of ensuring that votes are not in any way subjective or controversial.
As I stated earlier in the article that making enquiries on rules and why they exist isn’t an activity with an end in itself. It serves another purpose which brings overall progress to any organisation.
In the case of IFASA, the enquiry made into the rule for valid votes brought to light the problems faced by some of the electorates in ticking inside the box, which was concisely addressed by resolving that the box on the ballot paper be made to be bigger to accommodate the peculiarities of the electorate.
Rules are necessary to ensure survival, talk less of progress in any organisation. The rules we make for ourselves are the basis upon which our society exists. They are what classify us as civilised and make us higher animals, as we call ourselves.
These rules, at the same time, can be the reason for stagnation and underdevelopment in a society or an organisation. The story of the evolution of society has been that of ditching old counterintuitive rules. From the abolishment of slavery to ensuring the rights of women to vote, human society is always in a constant process of ditching old rules and establishing new rules to ensure progress and development.
Conclusively, Rules exist for a reason. This reason must be constantly checked to ensure that they serve a useful purpose and contribute to achieving the established goal, rather than obstructing its achievement.
