By "The Rules" I think we mean an accumulation of techniques and practices developed and refined by many people over time because they have proved useful. If one has any interest at all in the ones art one will surely be aware of its history and of what others have done. How else does one become interested in the first place? In this respect some awareness of this heritage seems to me to be unavoidable.
It doesn't necessarily have to go back centuries, though. If you're doing rock, you might be intimately familiar with the past 50 years of rock, punk, metal, post-punk, grunge, etc., without having a clue about opera.