Playing with the rules: cons and pros

Playfully Changing the Prevailing Climate of Opinion: Climate change as focal metaphor of effective global governance (Part #14)

Cons: In the "real world" however, concern at the problematic consequences of "playing with the rules" has been expressed in relation to:

Corporate governance: According to Alan Greenspan (Corporate Governance Improved following Enron, 2002) "Regulation has, over the years, proven only partially successful in dissuading individuals from playing with the rules of accounting" -- otherwise known as "creative accounting". Cartel formation and price fixing rings may well depend on this capacity.
Politics: Skilled politicians, political parties and political agents may be accused of "playing with the rules". This is a typical characterization of dictators and despots.
Terrorism: Concerns have been expressed that the USA has been "playing with the rules" in its response to terrorism [more]. On the other hand terrorists, when successful, might themselves be understood as playing with the rules -- playing more complex meta-games. It is indeed the case that players of meta-games may be experienced as terrifying
Crime: Almost by definition, criminals do not behave by the rules and see every means of manipulating them. Those accused of war crimes, such as Slobodan Milosevic, are perceived as "playing with the rules" [more].
Drugs: Not only is the drug trade subject to observations similar to crime, but use of narcotic drugs is ironically a way in which people empower themselves to "play with the rules" of cognition and their perception of the environment.
Corruption: Bribery and corruption in many cases involve different strategies for "playing with the rules" to the advantage of those who engage in them.
International treaties: The EU has expressed concern at the tendency of member countries to "play with the rules" in connection with environmental treaties [more]. Similar comments are made with respect to treaties governing trade and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons [more].
Illegal actitivites by government agencies: The US House of Representatives' Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence indicated that: "The CS [clandestine service] is the only part of the IC [intelligence community], indeed of the government, where hundreds of employees on a daily basis are directed to break extremely serious laws in countries around the world...A safe estimate is that several hundred times a day (easily 100,000 times a year) DO [Directorate of Operations] offices engage in highly illegal activities (according to foreign law)... " (IC21: The Intelligence Community in the 21st Century, 1996).

These examples are indicators of the significance of "playing with the rules" -- "beyond the law" or "above the law". The "bad guys" would seem to be operating in a higher dimensional space -- and with the freedoms that it offers (cf The "Dark Riders" of Social Change: a challenge for any Fellowship of the Ring, 2002). It is therefore a social tragedy that such capacity is not a much sought skill for those who would constrain them. Regrettably those who are acquiring insights into some of those skills are those who have been marginalized into a world of interactive gaming, especially the young.

The relation of cheating to rule breaking is explored in a healthy perspective by one of the most important thinkers within the Situationist International, Raoul Vaneigem (The Revolution of Everyday Life, 1967):

Every game has two preconditions: the rules of playing and playing with the rules. Watch children at play. They know the rules of the game, they can remember them perfectly well but they never stop breaking them, they never stop dreaming up new ways of breaking them. But for them, cheating doesn't have the same connotations as it does for adults. Cheating is part of the game, they play at cheating, accomplices even in their arguments. What they are really doing is spurring themselves on to create new games. And sometimes they are successful: a new game is found and unfolds. They revitalise their playfulness without interrupting its flow.

Pros: By contrast, there are several sectors where "playing with the rules" is highly valued as a mark of creativity:

Design: Successful designers play with the rules previously considered appropriate, possibly by deliberately seeking a new "metaphor". It is in this way that innovative designs emerge.
Entrepreneurship: This may be characterized by innovative "playing with the rules" to open up a new opportunity for which constraining regulations have subsequently to be adapted -- stretching the envelope. Even "creative accounting" may be highly valued.
Military strategy: Unconventional strategies, "playing with the rules" of engagement may be highly valued if they result in success (although they may be a source of considerable embarrassment, if they have not been "programmed" into war games, as with the success of General Paul Van Riper [more | more])
Espionage: With counter-espionage, this has been recognized as the "great game" in which "playing with the rules" is necessarily a fine art -- to be appreciated as heroic or condemned with horror, depending on whether one is the beneficiary or victim
Science: Innovation in physics, "playing with the rules", is illustrated by the classic tale of a lecture in which Wolfgang Pauli proposed a new theory of elementary particles and came under heavy criticism. Niels Bohr summarized this by saying "We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that is not crazy enough."
Adjudication: This may be characterized as a "rhetorical language game of justification" which requires a "choosing among values in contingent circumstances" as those values relate to both "playing within the rules" and "playing with the rules" of interpretation -- and then attempting to justify one's value choices rhetorically. Adjudication is therefore "playful," in an important sense, precisely because there is so much "play" in the rules and because, as a result, the successful pursuit of the judicial craft requires virtues associated with "play," such as imagination and creativity, in additional to "technical" legal skills.
Arts: Many of the arts (poetry, literature, painting, etc) would vigorously claim to be "playing with the rules", notably through the use of metaphor. Whole generations have been influenced by science fiction in this respect, for example.
Humour: Jokes are successful because they play with the rules of language, often in ways that suggest new relationships. In some spiritual traditions, humour is used precisely for this reason to elicit new levels of insight (cf Mulla Nasrudin, Taoist "crazy wisdom", or the deadly paradoxes and savage black humour of Tukaram, etc). In contrast to these exceptions, it is curious that sacred literature in general tends to be totally lacking in humour -- implying that deities do not play with their own rules! Note howver the humorous, yet eminently practical parables, based on real problems by real managers (cf Russell L. Ackoff, Ackoff's Fables: Irreverent Reflections on Business and Bureaucracy, 1991) or the challenges of the diplomatic world (cf V S M de Guinzbourg. Wit and Wisdom of the United Nations: Proverbs and Apothegms of Diplomacy. New York; United Nations 1961)
Leadership: As argued by Chris Patt (The Court Jester as a Metaphor for Learning and Change. Team Management Systems): "Organizations need 'rule breakers' to challenge assumptions about how things are done. They also need to look at how rule breakers are traditionally seen in their midst and question the support or lack of it that is usually afforded these people".
Humanitarian initiatives: Much appreciation may be due to those who -- faced with forbidding bureaucratic complexities preventing a timely appropriate response to peoples in need -- find ways to "play with the rules" to create loopholes that ensure assistance is nevertheless provided.

In both problematic and creative cases it may argued that a cognitive "space" is transformed or "twisted" in some special way that merits exploration (cf Engaging with Questions of Higher Order: cognitive vigilance required for higher degrees of twistedness, 2004).

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Playing with the rules: cons and pros