How to Rebel (Even in the Office) While Keeping the Rule of Law

Rebel fire. Credit: Freepik.com

The idea of the rule of law is a straightforward one. It says: Any rule I set for other people I must live by myself.

What I want to work out here is how it is possible to have rebellion (which seems inherently lawless) and the rule of law at the same time. How does the rule of law apply to independence? To be independent from someone, I myself must allow other people to be independent from me. Otherwise, in my rebellion, I would have lost the rule of law.

There is then a question in ruled independence as to in what matters and under what terms one should be subject to another person.

I like to be generous with people, so for me the question was not, "Who gets to rule me?" but rather, "Who does not get to rule me?" Same question, but the default sense is inverted.

This question allows me to go as far as I can with a generosity until I reach a point where I must say, "No." Hopefully, by then, I have a reason that I can supply as to why I can't go further with something.

There are some aspects of the principle of authority that are in play here. One is that not every person who grasps for power has an interest in keeping a rule of law. This is why we play defense here: Our objective to retain a lawfulness is a limit on what we can do. The strategy I already know is this: Take or develop a position that is compatible with lawfulness, then stand and hold that position. This type of thing is not a mere disagreement that you can drink your way through, as it is a dispute about authority itself.

A second aspect of this principle of authority is that the allegiance is not always to a person. There may be a certain set of matters in which it is right to submit to someone, and a different set of matters in which it is right to submit to someone different, or to not submit at all.

A third item is about mental health. If you are under pressure in an authoritative regime, and you want to go along with what they want to do until you have to say, "No" with a reason, then you have to have the cognition to do that and the language and connections to actually say that. If you go so far that you lose the ability to reason about why you're doing what you're doing, then your situation becomes much harder, and you may need a rescue and mental rehabilitation.

Authoritative regimes are not only in politics. They can be in your office too. Until you reckon with (the principle of) authority, you don't have "it" yet.

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And he [Hezekiah] Rebelled Against the King of Assyria and did not Work for him -- וימרד במלך אשור ולא עבדו

Yes, it's slavery, but no, it's not in Egypt.