Recently I tried to answer the age-old question, “What Is Art?” This time I want to look at an aspect of creative work that makes it differ considerably from the usual way of things. It has to do with breaking the rules.
I see rules and laws on a spectrum of normative behavior. Rules and laws are different basic ideas, but they share a continuum (along with traditional ways and rules of thumb). Rules and laws are similar — yet distinct — ideas.
One difference is expressed in the common phrase, "Rules are made to be broken." In fact, this post is precisely about that. But what is not a common phrase is, "Laws are made to be broken." That’s a distinction between them. They are similar in how both prescribe or proscribe our freedom.
That's rather a heavily freighted word, "freedom", but I use it specifically to catch the mental eye.1 It has also a technical meaning precisely correct for what I mean about rules and laws rather than any freighted, sociopolitical sense.
When technical people refer to degrees of freedom, they mean what is possible or not possible in a given system — the constraints and freedoms of the system’s action. That's the meaning I mean. Both rules and laws affect the degrees of freedom of a system. That system might be interacting sub-atomic particles, the world of business, drivers on the freeway, or people in a romantic relationship.
Or people trying to create art.
Laws & Rules
At one end of the spectrum, we have physical laws such as the law of gravity, the conservation of momentum, or the limit on the speed of light. Everything that we know about physics says these laws are unbreakable.
The speed of light, for example, as far as we know, is an absolutely, no kidding, unbeatable law. It’s the subject of one of my favorite physics bumper stickers:
(Which somehow reminds me of Sylvester Stallone in Judge Dredd, "I. AM. The Law!!"2)
If absolute, unbreakable physical laws are one end of a spectrum, the other end is what we might call custom or tradition (or even groupthink). A rule such as not wearing white after Labor Day is a custom, not a law. Such rules can be broken with the only risk being censure from the group holding the rule (the “gatekeepers”). How bad the penalty is for breaking these rules depends on your perceptions of self and the group. In some cases, penalties can be severe. Historically, even fatal.
Somewhere in the middle of the extremes are society-wide rules that are breakable, but which carry a heavy enough penalty, or a strict enough enforcement, that they approach the force of physical law. We call such rules “laws” for good reason.
But there is a very important distinction to be made here.
Social Rules
The laws a society forges don't have the force of physical law; we can easily break them. They have only the force of social law. If we break these rules, there can be consequences (though it is possible to “get away with” breaking the law). The intent is that the possible consequences are bad enough to utterly discourage rule breaking. But that still doesn't deter all criminal acts. The ultimate punishment, the death penalty, is widely acknowledged as not a deterrent.
The bottom line is that we can chose to break “laws” if we [a] accept the potential penalty, or [b] find the odds favorable, or [c] just aren't thinking straight. A great deal of crime, especially first-time, one-time crime, is committed in the heat of passion (or intoxication) — the opposite of thinking straight.
But someone can be in their right mind and chose to accept the risk for various (perhaps questionable) reasons. Personal gain is an obvious one, but civil disobedience to make a political statement is seen as righteous by many. The extreme of this is terrorism which (at least in theory) seeks to balance a small, desperate force against a larger, superior force.3
But being a successful rule breaker (for example, a successful bank robber) often eventually results in a bad outcome. The odds of success may be perceived as sufficiently high, but each repeat has the same low odds of getting caught and punished. With each throw of the die, the odds of crapping out may be low, but throw the die often enough and eventually they come up snake eyes.
The point here is that breaking social rules has a high risk and the consequences, if caught, are usually bad.4 You break social laws at your peril, and you only succeed to the extent no one notices you broke the rules (or catches you if they do notice). Some argue that criminal behavior damages self-image even when never caught. Many of our stories involve the power of guilt.
Business Rules
Business rules are similar to social rules, but don't usually have the force of social law backing them. Breaking business rules can invoke legal penalty, but often the result is the loss of business (or possibly esteem). But in some cases, it makes a company very successful.
There is an extra element when talking about rules in business.
Firstly, there is the concept of ethics. There are business rules without threat of fines or jail time, but, as with wearing white in the wrong season, members of a business community may react negatively on ethical grounds. Worse, customers may react negatively. A business can be entirely legal and still distasteful to potential customers (an obvious example is sweatshop clothing).5
Secondly, business rules often come from tradition and customs that create long-standing guidelines or "rules of thumb." These involve long practice and, at least in theory, represent acquired wisdom. There remains the risk of failure in breaking these rules, but sometimes breaking them amounts to the much sought (yet often punished) "thinking outside the box" and brings needed change to old ways.
Acquired wisdom isn't always right; times change and so do the rules. Finding a new way to do business can be a huge success. It might be a better way to do things, a new product to sell (the proverbial better mousetrap), or new way to find customers.
In this sense, rule breaking is a form of invention. And that brings us, at last, to art.
Art Rules
In art, the rules always have the implicit final clause, "...unless that's what you want."
In art, most of (if not all) the rules are guidelines, and — perhaps ironically given everything above — breaking them is usually the key to good art.
For example, in photography a basic rule is that the lighting can't be too dark (unless that's what you want). Orson Welles famously broke than rule in Citizen Kane when he filmed scenes with background elements brightly lit and foreground elements in darkness. The usual rule is that foreground elements get the brightest light and certainly are never in shadow. Unless that's what you want. Unless it adds a new and interesting dimension.6
Music is often most interesting when it breaks the rules. Many early composers — musicians now revered as classic masters — created their masterpieces by breaking rules in scandalous ways. In some cases, they broke rules so cast in stone at the time that people were shocked and angry. Can you imagine now being outraged by a Mozart concert? Think of Mozart as Madonna if that helps.7
In art any number of things can happen when an artist breaks the rules. At worst the art is shunned or criticized. (If their life is ironic, it's hated while they're alive, then revered after they die. To add injury to insult, other people make tons of money off their work.)
If the worst that can happen is lack of success, the best that can happen is becoming another Andy Warhol. Or Madonna. Or Mozart. Or [insert your undated favorite].
Sometimes the consequences of breaking an art rule are banal. People note the broken rule, find it "interesting" but upon reflection "obvious." Breaking that rule was adequate cool, but that rule was just waiting to be broken (or was broken long ago).
On the other hand, breaking the rules may cause a work to be worshiped as "ground-breaking." In art, breaking the rules is usually one big key to success. To the extent art is about a new take on an old universe, art may require breaking the rules to achieve anything interesting at all.8
What makes art so complicated is that there actually aren't any rules, not like we see socially or in business. There are general "rules of thumb" and conventions. There are traditions and guidelines. But no actual, hard and fast rules. Which is why it’s almost impossible to judge the outcome of breaking a perceived rule. Or for that matter, to guess the success of any piece of art.
This should explain a lot of unsuccessful movies. The ones that make one think, “Who the hell thought this was a good idea?” But compare it to some long-shot improbable successes of the past and realize no one has a clue whether some dumb, dumb idea will capture the hearts of fickle audiences.
It may also explain a lot about artists. An outlook not just lacking rules but oriented towards actively breaking them. Or just not seeing them as mattering.
No wonder artists look at life a bit differently.
They know rules are made for breaking!
Are you an artist? Are you a rule-breaker? What do you think about the act of creating art? How important do you think breaking the rules is for good art? For any art?
Until next time…
Your mental I.
A movie widely panned by critics and fans but which I thought was goofy great fun. (And that goes double for another Stallone movie widely disdained, Demolition Man.)
The smaller force presuming moral or historic authority in justification of their actions.
At least, that’s the idea; our legal system has gotten awfully mushy.
Ethics in social and person life is a vast topic I’ll leave for other posts and blogs.
I mentioned last time that “never been done before” is usually a Good Thing in art.
Oof, that’s a dated reference. But I’m a dated person.
Which is not to disdain “motel art” — in a world always hungry for content, commodity art has an important place.