Question

Steve's answer about the question regarding relaxing the rules and his advice "when in doubt keep the rule or ask other people", from the women's liberation movement I can tell a lot of examples where it is very important not to keep rules and to fight for a change. In other words, until the late 1960s in Germany, a wife needed the signature of her husband to allow her to go working. To be politically active for women's rights is very important in my life, not thinkable without changing rules or laws, and doubt about rules and laws is very important. So what is a wise dealing with doubts about rules and laws?

Answer

This person wrote that I said, ""when in doubt keep the rule or ask other people". Those words are in quotes, but I didn't actually say it that way.

There's no question about it, there are some rules which need to be changed, and for people to be active with changing rules is valuable. Whether it's the women's movement or whether it's anything else. There was a man who ran for president in the United States in the last election. He wasn't one of the major candidates, he was a little guy, his name was Ralph Nader. When I was a young man he was big news. I grew up in Washington D.C., so political news was very big. The way I understand it was, Ralph Nader came to town driving his Volkswagen, and in America that was not so common in the 1960s, it was a Beetle. He lived in an apartment and he wouldn't take any more money for the organization that he started than he absolutely needed. He would knock on everybody's doors in congress wanting to change things. He never became a congressman or a senator, but he would knock on doors, he would knock on doors, he started changing things. I'm not sure on specifics, but he started getting things done, like seatbelts in cars, like baby carriages that were safer for little babies, and all sorts of things, the list goes on and on. He's now very famous in America. He helped change many things by continually knocking on doors, just talking to people. So when there is something to change, fine. It's valuable to work towards change.

This is not in conflict though with the sense of something that has been tested and proved to be a good rule or ritual. Something that's been tested and been held onto for a long time that works, don't try to change it. Something that gets tested and hey there's problem there, fine, we can go about trying to change it.

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