made to be broken

[mrissa]

markgritter has labeled me Chaotic Good, which is a little strange considering that I am the force of organization in this house. (Anybody agree/disagree with him there?)

Here's how it came up, and I think this is important: yesterday I encountered someone who was not sure she was "family enough" to count in the "family only for ICU visits" rule for someone close to her. She definitely is, but I was boggled that this even came up, and frankly it was pretty upsetting. Important life lesson, people: you do not have to follow rules simply because someone else has gone to the trouble of making them.

If someone you love is in an ICU where they have a "family only" rule, and you know they want to see you, and you can be quiet and respectful of the other patients, congratulations! You are now their Cousin Cynthia. Or their Uncle Frank. Or whatever the hell else you want to be. Because the family only rule is not there because ICU patients benefit only from seeing people with specific blood or legal ties to them. It's there to keep the number of visitors down so the staff can work and the other patients aren't being disturbed by wild ICU parties. The first night my grandpa was in the ICU, my aunt Kathy came up to stay with him and my mom, and when I say "aunt," I mean "person who has no legal or blood relationship with me whatsoever." And my mom, without turning a hair, said to the night nurse, "This is my sister-in-law." Here's what this semi-fib did: it gave the night nurse a leg to stand on if anybody administrative challenged her on who was in Mr. Adams's room and/or the family lounge, and it expressed the closeness of my aunt Kathy to Mom and Grandpa without giving the night nurse the impression that she was someone who should be consulted with my mother equally on Grandpa's care. And on Grandpa's last Saturday with us, it was Grandma's "niece" Vicki (again, no relation) who stayed with her while we drove into the wee hours of the morning to get there. Was that rule there so that a person whose husband was dying would have to sit alone and wait? No. Hell no. And if it was, I don't care; that is not my problem. I had a dozen or more really major problems that night, and strict adherence to hospital guidelines was not anywhere on the list.

You know what else? Grandpa had c. diff., and I took off the gloves to hold his hand on the day he was dying and the day before that. You bet your ass I did. I didn't touch anything else while I had the gloves off, and I washed up like crazy after, but did I make my grandpa's last contact with me come through latex or nitrile? No. No. A thousand times no, a million times no. I am not high-risk for infection, I followed the anti-infection procedures better than some members of the hospital staff in that regard, and I am a competent adult human being with my own judgment. They can make their rules. I make mine.

I know some of you are facing medical issues. Do not let them intimidate you pointlessly. Things are bad enough when you're dealing with a crisis without deciding that a spirit of legalism must inform your doings. Your first obligations are moral and interpersonal, not regulatory.

Comments

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

yes.

when my sister was in the nicu after she was born, lo and behold my mom's best friend was there in the hospital explaining (with my mom's help) how she was married to my grandfather and was therefore family, and weren't may-december relationships great?

[pieslut.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Heck yes. (I'd describe myself as Neutral Good, personally.)

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I've never actually played a system that uses this scheme...but isn't "neutral" an alternative for "good" and "evil", and thus on the other axis from "lawful" and "chaotic"?

[ckd]

Prof's "rational anarchism" from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress comes to mind.

My feeling is that rules are neither made to be broken nor are they made to be followed. I allow a general presumption of rationality, and so I will by default follow the rules; if I judge a rule to be more harmful than the breaking of it, however, I'll do what needs doing.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

This message is SO not the words of someone with "lawful" orientation!

Not that this comes as a surprise. I'm more "lawful" than you, too. (Though not enough to respect the letter of hospital rules, no.)

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

I've never lived with you or even spent any significant time with you outside of dinner and baseball, but I wouldn't have thought to call you chaotic in any wise. :)

[themagdalen.livejournal.com]

I agree with you wholeheartedly about ICU rules.

[tewok.livejournal.com]

Yes, absolutely! on the ICU regs.

[shana.livejournal.com]

"They're more like guidelines, really..."

[redbird]

I think the axis might better be labeled order-chaos than law-chaos. Which makes things like "does it matter that everything is in its expected place?" and "how much pre-planning do you want before a vacation trip?" more relevant than "do you obey rules because they are rules, and should other people do so?"

Back to the original incident, I suppose someone might be wondering "does X think of me as family?" which is a reasonable question. For that matter, yes, I'm their cousin Cynthia, but do I want my third cousin who I have met once in my life to be there at a time like that? No, though if I did want her there she could legitimately say "I'm her stepsister." (I'll save that for the two people I do think of as sisters by choice, who are not blood kin. One looks enough like me that nobody would think "stepsister" rather than blood kin, with the other I'm surprised we don't get questions about interracial families and adoption.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

In this case, which I was attempting to not label very clearly for the privacy of those involved, I think the question of whether X thinks of the person as family is very well settled in the affirmative.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Agreed about the hospital rules on all counts.

I'd call you neutral good, as I have always understood chaotic to be breaking rules for the sake of breaking them and lawful to be respecting rules no matter what. You break rules when they don't make sense, but you consider why the rule exists and what purpose it might be serving.

[gaaldine.livejournal.com]

My mom's friend Jane visited her in the ICU, so either they aren't enforcing "the rules" all that much or family "liberties" are being taken. But I don't think anyone minds.

The only risk I can see is that the place I come from is a small town where people do know each other. Luckily, it is also an incestuous small town, so relationships could seem plausible.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm glad people don't mind.

And yah, in Ralston there were "I didn't know you were cousins" reactions to people who had known each other for years and years. It just hadn't come up.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Hm, I don't think this makes you chaotic - my impression is that you're highly lawful. To the point of having your own carefully-thought-out laws, and following them scrupulously, even if they don't match other people's laws.

You didn't break the ICU rules because you didn't give a fuck, or just felt like it; you broke them because a more important law (love, filial piety (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filial_piety))commanded you to.

[columbina.livejournal.com]

Huh, I had you down as Lawful Neutral, personally.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I trust you didn't intend to be offensive here.

[prettymuchpeggy.livejournal.com]

How very Scandasotan of you, but I think of most Scandasotans as rule followers until the rules go against common-sense.

[saoba.livejournal.com]

Hospital conversations I have known and loved-

#1 NICU nurse, pointing at me: Who is this?

Parent 1: Our minister
Parent 2: My labor coach

Nurse: Which? Or both?

Parents: Both

Nurse: Huh. She'll have to-

Me: Sign in, scrub in, gown, mask, dispose of same, scrub out, sign out?

Nurse: Not your first time at the rodeo, Reverend?

#2

Same nurse, six days later upon checkout: This little girl sure has one big family.

Parent: Errr. well...

Nurse: You didn't fool anyone, you know.

Me: But you didn't rat us out?

Nurse: We watched you. And all of you were so polite. And so obviously *praying* for her... it just didn't seem important. (pause) Never tell what hospital this happened at, okay?

#3 Scene: an oncology ward

Nurse, pointing at me: And is this a relative?

Patient: Uh...

Me: This is the person who was in their wedding and who has quit her job to sit with her so her husband can stand to keep working to keep their insurance. I'll be here every day from 8 AM to 6PM.

Nurse: I'll write down cousin. That way no one is surprised if the last names don't match.

#4 Scene: an oncology ward- reverse airlock room. Doorway to hall begins to open.

Me, throwing myself at the door: STOP! You have to come in the other door and follow the scrub in procedure!

(Scrub room door opens so quickly it is clear he hasn't scrubbed. I hit the call button.)

Me, throwing myslef at the second door: STOP! You have to scrub and gown! It's for the patient's safety!

Unidentified, unscrubbed visitor: I'm her minister! She called me! Who are you?

Me: No, you aren't. No, she didn't. And I am the person who is trying to keep you from exposing her to something that could kill her!

Patient: Oh hell, that's my mother's minister. I told her I didn't want him here.

Disembodied voice from nurse's station: Is everything all right in there?

Me: No. We have some bozo who thinks that his clerical collar means he doesn't have to scrub in.

Nurse's voice: Nor sign in, apparently. Which means he either doesn't have or just lost his visiting rights on this ward. I'm sending security to escort him from the building.

Minister: Do you know who I am?

Nurse's voioce: You're the guy I'm going to call the cops on if he doesn't shut up and go quietly.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Heh.

And that's what I meant when I said it gave the nurse a leg to stand on with administrative questions: most medical staff are not actually very concerned with the niceties of relationships, they're concerned that the people who are present are being responsible, respectful, and reasonably caring. They don't want to be rules lawyers, so if we give them a way not to, all for the best.

I'm amused at the idea that last names should match, though. I have my parents and one other relative surnamed Lingen that I see on anything like a regular basis, and it's been like that my whole life. I have a very large family and see lots of them--but it's relationships like "dad's father's sister who changed her name upon marriage; her husband and daughter" and "mom's mother's sister's son, who has his father's name." With markgritter's family, at least we do see his Gritter grandparents, and he has two brothers we see, and we're in touch with a couple of aunts who are surnamed Gritter and like that. But with my original last name, the one I actually use, it's a darn good thing all the aunties I introduce my friends to want to be called "Aunt so-and-so" rather than "Mrs. whatever," because there's no way my friends could guess their last names.

[orbitalmechanic.livejournal.com]

I might have to re-think this axis. Because everyone who knows me knows how Lawful I am, but I feel like that's totally consistent with certain types of civil disobedience.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I think an awful lot of people confuse "lawful" and "good". You sound like you're neutral to outside laws, but very true to your own principles, which sounds like "neutral good" to me. (Or "evil", if people don't like your principles :-)).

Lawful neutral are the worst, because you can't make any sort of argument from necessity, or intent of the law, or anything, they don't care about the outcome, just the laws.

[aedifica]

Yes. That fits very well with what I try to follow:

1. Assume the rule is there for a reason.
2. Learn or try to figure out what that reason is.
3. Decide whether the reason is good, relevant, etc.
4. Decide whether to follow the rule.

I do follow most rules, but I try to make sure not to follow them blindly.

[writingortyping.livejournal.com]

Amen, yes, amen.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

What I usually tell myself in these situations is that I will be more disruptive if I work within the local rule system to get approval for what I'm going to do anyway. Because that involves a lot of stubbornness and chain-of-command climbing and dignified scene making. Nobody benefits from that.

I don't think that rules like this are stupid, though. They serve an important gatekeeping function: only the people who have a strong connection will push past them. The same thing with the gloves: the rules make people think twice before doing something risky.

I have a very Lawful orientation, though. Librarian administrator. Whatcha gonna do. One important thing I've learned as such, though, that seems appropriate here, is that regulations are not the same thing as laws. That's true literally as well as figuratively. And local rule systems are the weakest kind of regulations...

[hypatia-j.livejournal.com]

I may have been 3 or 4 the first time I remember being snuck into an ICU as the 'grandchild' of an elderly neighbor. I don't recall either of my parents claiming that they were related to him.

This actually fits the situation as my brother and I saw it. p_roqueforti and I DID call him grandpa. I suspect that my parents would've glibly claimed just about any relation necessary to visit friends who wanted to see them.

I remember several occasions in my child-hood explaining that I had three sets of grandparents but that none of them were 'step-'. But then I've always delighted in confusing people.

[summers-place.livejournal.com]

My childhood was kind of like that. My godparents were no blood relation to me, but my godmother's mother was one of those ladies who wanted all the kids to regard her as "Grandma" and call her by that title, so I effectively had my a "Grandma Mother's_maiden_name", "Grandma Paternal_surname" and a "Grandma Godmother's_maiden_name". The fact that I played over at her house on a semi-regular basis with my godparents' daughter and the children of my godmother's brother, as well as various neighborhood children who also called her "Grandma" just gave me extra cousins, as far as I was concerned.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

And most good hospitals (IME) are more attached to the spirit of the rule than the letter anyway, as in the examples above.

Example: Four people arrive together for a birth--the genetic/surrogate mom, the genetic father, the surrogate mom's wife (unrelated according to state law), and the adoptive-mom-to-be. Only two parents can be given official bracelets that permit them to go the nursery with the baby. But late at night--with only one (unbraceletted) parent awake, the nurses had no objection to my standing really close to the nursery door, or keeping the baby within reach of the door when he screamed while being changed.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

I'd have said Neutral-Good--maybe you follow the rules, maybe you don't. Chaotic Good isn't far off, though.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

No. You are CLEARLY Lawful Good; you just have very strict laws of your own devising that you stick to.

This is an excellent, excellent post. Thank you.

[markgritter.livejournal.com]

It appears that many of the people writing comments seem to think that lawfulness is about a personal code (like haddayr or diatryma or marydell.) But lawfulness is not just honesty or consistency, but also about how you interact with society. The D&D description mixes the two (of course) but to say "I follow the rules I agree with" or "I follow the rules I've made for myself" is in my mind more Neutral.

Lawful Good is belonging to the state church rather than a renegade band of Haugeans. ;)