In any society you will always have a few that are the creative freethinkers, and many that are willing to follow blindly. These freethinkers are usually the ones that come up with creative and smart ideas. The kind of ideas that allowed our human civilisation to advance, but also the ideas that helped our societies to function smoothly. These Ideas are usually presented by freethinkers, before being later picked up by influential members of the society and established as social or legal rules.
And that’s why rules are important, they allow the many, to do smart actions and take smart decisions, without having done the reasoning that most often goes beyond their logical capacities.
But as societies are dynamic and things change a lot and all the time, the underlying reason for which some rules were made, might no longer be valid. Only freethinkers would be able to identify the shift and amend the rules or realise the need for them to be abolished, but that would be an uphill battle if the rules gave some advantages to some.
In essence, it is easy to lead the sheep to run in circles, but good luck getting them to stop.
