Psychology

Every system has rules. These rules have existed since the start of these systems, either written down in books, or passed around like a Chinese whisper gone horribly wrong. Rules govern and discern the acceptable, forbidden, normal, strange, right, and wrong. And for the most part, rules maintain order, allowing systems to run the course of the status quo. They keep a society, institution, family, culture, or even an individual functioning in a predictable way. The system can never allow deviation, because deviation or change is considered a form of heresy. At some point, the rules will break and the system will change, regardless of how severe the consequences from within may be. And that is the premise of the Heretic Paradox. A system exists through rules, until a rule is broken, eventually causing an unstoppable evolution. The breaker of the rule is first reviled, then revered, creating his own system, which later awaits another heretic. Since a system was meant to persist, the heretic is the disruption, where the next chapter begins. The heretic isn’t inherently evil, but only presented as such. This article explains the heretic paradox in detail, removing illusions of good & evil.  The First Heretic There is perhaps no story more famous than that of Adam and Eve. According to Genesis, God created humanity and placed Adam in the Garden of Eden. Eve joins him, and they live in the garden with one caveat: they may eat from the trees of the garden, except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Then comes the serpent, challenging the command. He tells Eve that eating the fruit will open their eyes and make them like God, knowing good and evil. Eve was the first to eat, followed by Adam. This is when humankind evolved. Their eyes opened, becoming aware of their nakedness. They covered themselves, hiding from God. God – the all knowing – eventually expelled them from Eden, and prevented the access to the Tree of Life. The story has since been traditionally interpreted through ideas of sin, disobedience, temptation, and the Fall. And the narrative is seen across all Abrahamic religions. But in hindsight, it was simply boundary crossed, which eventually ended the old system. In it’s place a new system began. The forbidden act did not create biological life on earth or humans for that matter. Adam and Eve were already alive. It triggered a transformation in the condition of human existence. Innocence was replaced by awareness. Immortality replaced by mortality, and obedience became a choice. And the story moved from a garden in paradise into human history on earth. The Strange Part The transgression has thus been recorded as a catastrophe, yet the world that follows is the world in which humanity actually lives, struggles, creates, reproduces, builds civilizations, invents, destroys, discovers, and changes. The story gives us a remarkably useful progression that starts with a rule which is broken, and the transformation that follows. The old system doesn’t continue unchanged. A line crossed that cannot be undone. Humans now possess knowledge they did not know before. They have crossed a boundary. And once a boundary has been crossed, the previous state is no longer quite available. That is where the paradox begins. Especially since breaking the rule is seen as an act of evil requiring punishment – the original sin. Who Decides What Is Heresy? The word heretic is interesting because it is always relative to a system. A heretic is usually one who deviates from an established belief or doctrine. Before there can be a heretic, there must first be a system with rules. It could be a rule, doctrine, tradition, or a status quo. The system defines how things are. The heretic questions its existence or what happens if they deviate. To the established system, that question is dangerous, which could give birth to more heretics. Religions have heretics, political systems have dissidents & rebels, scientific communities have skeptics who challenge prevailing theories, artists have broken conventions, musicians have abandoned established forms, and societies have changed customs that once seemed unquestionable. These words describe completely different people, they could also describe the same person at different points in history. A heretic goes against the norm, breaking the rule, and creating a new path of exploration. And that path isn’t inherently evil. Why Does Deviation Become Evil? The relationship between evil and the status quo has always been sorta taboo. A system can only survive partly by preserving its rules which govern members on what to do and what not to do. Following the rules reinforces the system while breaking the rules threatens it. So deviation in this sense can be attributed to crossing the binds of morality itself. The person who agrees with the system is glorified and rewarded. The one who disagrees with it is corrected through punishment. But the one who repeatedly violates its boundaries may eventually become an enemy of the system itself. This is one reason ideas of good and evil can become intertwined with obedience and disobedience. The obedient person reinforces the established order while the dissenter disrupts it. From the perspective of the system, that disruption can look like destruction. But the disruption is exactly what allows a new arrangement to emerge. Breaking rules is not inherently good. The Heretic Paradox does not say that every rebel is right. It simply reinforces the dangerous idea: A system cannot discover a genuinely different possibility without deviating from what the system already permits. Breaking rules uncovers more possibilities, but there’s obviously a very important caveat. The Trap of the Cycle Consider what happens when a system becomes very good at preserving itself.  A rule creates a behavior. The behavior produces an outcome. The outcome reinforces the rule. The rule produces the behavior again. And eventually the system has created a loop. The cycle can continue for generations. A family can repeat the same expectations from their kids. A culture can preserve the same