“We all feel the oppressive presence of rules, both written and unwritten – it’s practically a rule of life. Public spaces, organisations, dinner parties, even relationships and casual conversations are rife with regulations and red tape that seemingly are there to dictate our every move,” writes professor of behavioral science Nick Chater. 

“We rail against rules being an affront to our freedom, and argue that they’re “there to be broken.”

However, as a behavioral scientist, he believes that it’s not really the concept of rules and our restriction of freedom that makes us want to break them. It’s rather that people feel that some rules can’t be explained in a reasonable way.

"We object when we feel obliged to follow rules that we wouldn't have agreed to—​e.g., that we think are unjust or simply pointless. And breaking those rules can feel like an expression of individuality," he tells Bored Panda.

This can be beneficial, especially when "the rules are excessively rigid, unjust or bureaucratic—and perhaps imposed by one group (perhaps the majority) on another," says Chater.

On the other hand, we tend to abide by the rules, which we find logical. Just like the rules of English or language as a whole. We might think of liberating ourselves from it, but this new-found freedom would not make us ‘unchained.’ Conversely, it would turn us into incoherent creatures who would be hard to understand. Then we wouldn’t be able to communicate with others, and that’s not something a person commonly desires.

Even though we might feel tempted to protest some rules, they’re hard-wired into our DNA. We simply absorb complex language systems and social norms without really asking too many questions, saying, “It’s the way we do things around here.”

That's why Chater believes that it's not really possible for rules to cease to exist. "Humans spontaneously invent rules all the time, both to get along (rules for sharing, helping, telling the truth) and making life fun (rules for games)."

Rules allow us to live (for the most part) in harmony with each other without going into chaos and disorder. “Without some rules – and some tendency for us to stick to them – society would slide rapidly into pandemonium. In fact, our species’ ability to latch onto, and enforce, arbitrary rules is crucial to our success as a species,” concludes Chater.