[rmshea]

While this quote rings true most of the time, it's important to discern whether this mindset is merely enabling mischief or allowing for an acceptable level of disobedience.

Many monumental breakthroughs were accomplished by disregarding permission, and rebellious attributes are attributed to people like Stephen Wolfram[0] and Albert Einstein. The MIT Media Lab even has an award for disobedience [1].

This mindset, though, can manifest into an unhealthy obsession with breaking the rules. An uncontrolled expectation to "ask forgiveness" can lead to murky moral territories. Where do you draw the line between accepting rebelliousness and enforcing the law?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Wolfram#Education_and_...

[1] https://www.media.mit.edu/posts/disobedience-award/

[notabee]

I feel like the Dunning-Kruger effect plays a big part in the problem. Many people feel an illusory confidence in their capacity to understand a problem domain, whether they are in the role of the rebellious person or the law enforcer. Consensus with group wisdom outside of that hierarchical dynamic seems like one of the best protections against foolish rebellions or foolish rigidity, but that still leaves the problem case of what to do when the larger group wisdom is not correct. That's going to be the rarer case by definition considering how badly people tend to be at rating their own knowledge, but we also depend on those rare, capable individuals to overturn established wisdom. Or as put more succinctly by George Bernard Shaw,

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."