Unwritten rules? There is no law that says you can’t wear a hat indoors, and yet it’s considered bad form. Who decided this? Why? Why should anyone today follow this arcane etiquette when they can just do whatever they please. Power to the people!

But consider the disastrous effects when citizens grow hostile to society’s unwritten rules. Comedians are attacked onstage for telling jokes. Supreme Court decisions are leaked in an apparent effort to pressure justices to either change their vote or hold firm on their position. Regular citizens are mocked and pilloried for their decision to continue to wear masks after the COVID-19 threat has largely subsided.

The erosion of unwritten rules has made its way to the very top of our government. In recent weeks, senators have been working to amend the Electoral Count Act of 1887 in order to codify how Congress certifies a presidential election. For 134 years, such an amendment was not necessary, as one of society’s unwritten rules was that when Congress meets to certify an election, the results were final and unquestioned.

As “win at all costs,” do “anything necessary,” became the unquestioned guiding “principles” of existential activists, the unwritten rules that constrained our behavior before no longer applies. Once we’re free of social norms, at least the social norms that inhibit a tribe from doing whatever it needs to do, what’s left?

In the past, for instance, there was a reticence by America’s educators to inject classroom instruction with their own political ideology or cultural preferences. But a new brand of teacher seems to believe the minds of the children in their care belong to them—not the parents who pay their salaries and suspect their children are more suited to a future career in biochemical engineering than they are teaching gender studies at Williams College.

Seeing this breakdown of norms, legislatures such as the one in Florida are responding with a breakdown of norms of their own, injecting itself into classroom instruction and teacher-student interactions in a way it never has before. Florida isn’t alone; across America, bill drafters are up late crafting new laws to micromanage political topics in classrooms, from discussion of gender fluidity to lessons about systemic racism.

The woke, whoever that is today, will argue that this is a sham and teachers aren’t injecting social and racial justice into the minds of children. While they try to argue to parents that what they see happening isn’t happening, states are enacting bad laws to prevent it. Why? Because this problem that never would happen given the unwritten rules of society is happening, and so inept and incoherent written rules are being created to stop it.

Without exception, these bills are drafted hastily and thus sloppily. As it turns out, transforming an unwritten rule into a written one is often impossible.

For those seeking to reinvent society in accordance with their passionate beliefs, this is both good and bad. After all, if their constantly shifting, outcome-oriented, wholly unprincipled vision of Utopia can’t be put into words, then the evil tribe can’t pass a law to prohibit it. Winning, right? Except they can still pass a bad law that wreaks havoc. And regardless, you haven’t won over the parents, even if they are too stupid to appreciate your genius and empathy.

If you are a combatant in today’s culture, the answer is clear. No mercy, no apologies. No decency.

And no shame. There’s no law requiring you to say “please” and “thank you,” or to hold open the door so the next person can pass through. There’s no law saying the Frisco Giants can’t run up the score against the Padres. How do you figure this is going to end well for your tribe, for anyone? What do you have left when the unwritten rules are gone?

Hidden Law is like water or air: Everyone takes it for granted until it is no longer reliably there. Then people start paying attention, and eventually, as the quality of life declines, they act.

Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.