The American Spectator

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The Nation's Pulse

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Interestingly, this is the way boys and girls play. Recent studies have showed that when boys play together they like to establish rules and then make sure everybody abides by them. (When Eric Erikson studied children in the 1950s by letting them create their own worlds from an enormous array of toy figures, he found the boys' favorite was always the traffic cop.) Girls on the other hand, like to make up rules and then find endless exceptions to them. Their concern is always the special case, not the general order. (These sexual characteristics work, of course, only as a general rule. There are always exceptions.)

AS IN SO MANY OTHER THINGS, then, the Republicans seem to make a living by representing the male perspective in public policy while the Democrats represent the female point of view. This is not a bad thing. Like the yin and yang of Buddhist theology, they can work together to create a living whole.

The problem arises when exceptions are multiplied so many times that they become the rule -- or, inversely, when we try to create a general rule for everyone by aggregating a gaggle of exceptions. Then the system is likely to dissolve into mayhem.

Call me a male if you like, but I prefer trying to assess the entire situation and making a rule that generally applies the same standard to everyone, while trying to keep exceptions to a minimum. Of course the system must always have some flexibility. That's why we give juries the power to determine guilt or innocence and then let judges impose the sentence for the crime.

Living by the exception, however, only undermines the general order. If we're going to have school vouchers, let's offer it universally instead of starting with some rich guy in Manhattan and letting it trickle down to everyone else. If we're going to legalize gambling, let's open the doors to everyone instead of creating an exception for Indian tribes and then letting them set up casinos all across the country.

Equality before the law is supposed to be one of the great triumphs of modern democracy. If society is built on rules, then they should apply to everybody. Living by the exception only encourages everyone to develop their own exit strategy. The people who are harmed will be the ones who agree to play by the rules.

topics:
Education, Law, Supreme Court, Unions