An unruly pair
Rules, can’t live with them, can’t live without them. But if it’s rules for thee but not for me, then trouble awaits
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Here is an easy riddle: what do Novak Djokovic and Boris Johnson have in common? They are both experiencing some trouble with rules. The world no. 1 male tennis player, intent on defending his Australian Open title, has been experiencing a few problems trying to enter the country, related to its COVID-19 immigration rules. The British premier has been attending a gathering in the garden of his official residence at 10, Downing Street in May 2020, when the country was in lockdown and such an event was in breach of the government’s own COVID rules.
Rules are a peculiar phenomenon. We may not be aware of them all the time, but they lurk in vast numbers just below the surface of our day-to-day business. Some rules are descriptive, capturing an equivalence or a correlation between observations (e.g., the doorbell sounds) and their significance (there is someone at the door). This helps us simplify the world around us, and make decisions without much cogitation. For example, when we hear the bell, we may want to go and open the door (or at least check whether it is a visitor we want to welcome). Likewise, the rule that, If the milk smells bad, then it is unfit for consumption can help us decide whether we should pour it in our coffee or tea, or instead in the sink.
What is, and what ought to be
Rules can also be normative: instead of describing what is, they assert what ought to be, and tell us what we must, or must not do. We can (and do) make many of such rules up for ourselves. We may have a rule that we go for a run four times a week, do the weekly shop on Saturday morning at 8am, or squeeze the toothpaste tube from the end (rather than the middle). We may also make rules that apply to ourselves and to others: if you enter this house, you must wipe your feet; if an item of clothing needs washing, you must place it in the laundry basket (and not leave it on the floor); if you put the cutlery in the drawer, the forks go on the left, and the spoons on the right, and so on.
