Why ‘It’s Just How Things Are’ Isn’t an Answer

Most social rules get absorbed without anyone checking their logic: this is just how it's done, this is just tradition, this is just how the queue works. For a lot of people that's enough. For others, an unexamined rule is an open question, and ‘it's just how things are’ reads less like an answer and more like a refusal to give one.

This isn't contrarianism. It's a genuine need for the rule to be internally consistent before it gets treated as binding. If the reasoning holds up, the rule gets followed, sometimes more precisely than anyone else follows it. If it doesn't hold up, no amount of social pressure makes it hold up either.

Institutions built on unexamined custom tend to find this uncomfortable. But the discomfort is doing something useful. A rule that survives being questioned was probably a good rule. One that doesn't was worth questioning.

Originally published by the Nogical Editorial Desk. Preserved from the earlier site; this piece is not presented as autobiography.