part of the fun is being transgressive

[piranha]

copied from a comment else-LJ:

[...] it seems like a very immature behavior. I think of teenagers (or two-year-olds) being defiant just to exercise or demonstrate some power in the world (largely because it's the only power they have--or think they have, the power to say "no").

Maybe I'm imagining a straw man; maybe people who assert this aren't saying and feeling and thinking "oooh, look how naughty we are, we're *breaking* the *rules*!" But my imagination isn't coming up with another attitude to explain it differently, and I have been unsuccessful in my attempts to learn differently


let me turn the question around: what is so mature about following rules?

aside from transgressive rulebreaking as a political statement (i do this as a matter of course), and the adrenaline rush (i don't do this; i don't _like_ adrenaline rushes), i actually think it's a healthy part of the maturation process to break rules. i was raised to be very law abiding (obedient to god, the government, my elders, men). i do not actually think there is anything inherently mature in obeying rules, it's something we get trained to do as children, and many of us retain it by habit and out of fear, not out of a thoughtful evaluation of the reasons for the rules and carefully considered agreement. we just worry about the consequences, and few of us consider whether those consequences should even be there.

i used to struggle with this a lot, and for me it was a sign of maturity to even consider breaking any rules -- maturity as in thinking for myself, evaluating conditions, accepting responsibility for my actions, and refusing it for the feelings of others when i did something they didn't like but which harmed nobody. and i broke some rules just to break them, to see how i'd feel, what would happen. sometimes rules need to be broken to show that they're total hogwash. sometimes they need to be broken to learn that yeah, maybe they're not such a bad idea. without pushing the envelope, how do we really know where our boundaries lie?

is that "immature"? while in the process of maturing, one's by definition immature, but i view that more in terms of "not fully grown into an adult" as opposed to "naughty little prankster trying to freak the mundanes" which seems to be how you are using it.

i still have some rules in my head that i should break just to break them; stuff that i sucked in as an unquestioning child without assessing their validity for myself.

it's enormously freeing to break such engrained rules. even if afterwards i decide that yeah, the rule works for me, and i should keep it; it's way better to have broken it and evaluated my feelings than to have just accepted it. and yeah, it is fun to do something that makes me a little bit more free. part of the fun is in having overcome a multitude of fears that keep us all in line. another part is a certain joie de vivre from doing your own thing, censure by others be damned. i don't view that as immature per se.

Comments

[ailbhe]

Rule-breaking is a necessary part of the maturing process; through it children develop judgment and create a wealth of experience on which to draw when making later decisions. Not being allowed to break, bend, change, and create rules in very early childhood sounds seriously damaging to me. I live with someone who finds problem-solving almost impossible, because there is only one way to do anything, and if there isn't an existing ruleset, it's almost impossible to devise one.

[rockthecj.livejournal.com]

I have been told repeatedly that selfishness is heavily associated with immaturity. If you follow no rules but your own, you're an extremely selfish person, which in turn makes you immature as well. This accusation was thrown at my head so many times that my forehead has its own landing strip. =] However, my argument is what lies the difference between immaturity and maturity is self-awareness. If you're aware of what you do, then you're mature enough to deal with the consequences on your own. That's all it matters. I'm not sure if this makes sense but it does in my head.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I've always felt that the position of a mature person with respect to rules is neither following nor breaking, but writing; or if not empowered to do that, to hack them. That rules have no inherent validity and should be assessed in the light of what good they are doing, and for whom.

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

I think of rule-breaking as a normal and necessary part of growing up; it's part of the process of becoming mature, it is something that people do before they are mature. So if an adult is doing a lot of rule-breaking "just because", that's an adult that's acting like an adolescent. [shrug]

Of course, there's also mature rule-breaking in which a person has thought through the reasons and consequences and made a conscious decision to do their own thing.

What bugs me a lot, though, is when someone's rule-breaking impinges on my own life. For example, I was at a party once where a 50-something man was feeding women gooey chocolate-dipped fruit with his hands, in the process getting chocolate and fruit smushed onto their faces, hair and clothes. I wanted nothing to do with this, because I was wearing a new, dry-clean-only outfit. He ragged on me about being "square" and "not having fun" -- but I wasn't avoiding him because of some inhibited fear of dirt. I just didn't think the "fun" would be worth the dry-cleaning bill.

[prairierabbit.livejournal.com]

What bugs me a lot, though, is when someone's rule-breaking impinges on my own life.

I agree. Recently, it seems to be a trend that at a four-way stop, drivers try to slip through two or three at a time, instead of waiting to take their individual turns. That's simply selfishness and the sort of entitlement ("I'm special, I shouldn't have to wait my turn") that aggravates others. I don't have any patience with that sort of rule-breaking. Mature rule-breaking, to me, involves choices that are not simply a way to privilege oneself at the expense of others.

rule-breaking out of a sense of entitlement

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

oh, this is a good example of a type that nobody had brought up in the other thread. yes, absolutely, rule-breaking out of a misplaced sense of entitlement; there's a lot of that. i wouldn't call that immature, i think (i don't want to overload the term), but it's still an obnoxious type of rule-breaking.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*ewww*, gross. though i am not entirely sure what rule he was breaking. however, even if no rules are broken, imposing one's own standards of "fun" on others is louty behaviour.

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

Oh, he was going on about overcoming inhibitions, and said that avoiding physical dirt and mess was a symptom of sexually inhibition, and so on.

He thought the rule he was breaking was "now now, don't get dirty!" (with overtones of sex as "dirty") -- but really the rule he was breaking was "don't impose your own standard of fun on others". That, and the general rule of "don't be an a**hole".

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

oh, ok. well, that's perfectly alright for him to be doing, overcoming his own inhibitions. even asking others to go along is ok. but berating them when they say "no" is a different story, and pushing stuff in their face, that goes over the line.

i am not sure there actually is a rule such as "don't impose your own standard of fun on others" in the mainstream. that rule exists in several of my subcultures, and it's one i don't break, *heh*. but it's broken so often towards me by regular people that i am doubting they are aware of it.

parts of the whole "don't impose on others" it are accepted and even enshrined in law -- when it comes to physical actions, and loud noise. but generally people seem to act as if their sense of fun were the only sense of fun possible. it's often not enough to just say "no, thanks", many times there's argument about how this thing i am turning down "would be fun!" and how i need to let loose and enjoy myself more. i've lost count of how often my sense of humour has been disparaged.

[redbird]

I wonder how he would have reacted to "it's your fun, will you pay my dry cleaning bill?"

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

Following rules because they are rules is for children; adults think about their actions and do what is reasonable, which will usually coincide with the rules unless the rules are bad. This defines adulthood, in the ethical/moral sense, for me.

[flarenut.livejournal.com]

In a complicated world, many rules serve as simplifiers -- you could figure out exactly what is the best thing for you in each individual situation, or you could adopt some rulesets that seem not to suck so much and break them if and when you think it's a good idea. That said, I think that sometimes (and for some people) rule-following is a sign of maturity the way that any discipline involving delayed gratification of short-term desires is a sign of maturity. Even if it's just enlightened selfishness, it's still more mature than the id-driven kind.

Of course, I've gone through periods in my life where my ingrained opposition to authority (one of my third-grade teachers recounted how I would tie my shoelaces around the desk so I couldn't be sent to stand in the corner) was so strong that transgression became just another rule that I had to follow, even if what I really wanted to do was something generally approved. Whee.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

oh man, i resemble that last paragraph. not so much directly by transgressing rules, but by rebelling against argument from presumed authority. if somebody would tell me i should/must do X i would do the thing 180° from X, even if i had leaned towards X before.

that was deeply stupid, and meant i was giving other people way too much power while aiming for the exact opposite. i got over it right quick, but the impulse is with me to this day (that's why i try to head off people on LJ giving me unsolicited advice; it brings out that ornery "no, i won't, because who the fuck are you to tell me i should do this" feeling and i don't need to be fighting that at a time when i ought to be working on whatever is giving me trouble).

yeah, i agree that learning to delay gratification is part of maturation. the learning thereof, and the application in certain circumstances.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Our oldest was three, or maybe a little younger, when he first devised an alternative that served the purpose of a rule (an important purpose: maintaining a younger sibling's safety) but allowed him to do what he wanted. We were delighted.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

wow, that is amazingly impressive at that age. that seems way, way early.