Rule-worship converts a defensive tactic into a rigidly held attitude.

Evidence

Denying discretion is a common way !o limit responsibility. Workers seek to deny that they have,influence, are free to make decisions, or offer service alternatives. Strict adherence to rules, and refusals to make exceptions when exceptions might be made, provide workers with defenses against the possibility that they might be able to act more as clients would wish. “That’s the way things are,” “It’s the law,” and similar rationalizations not only protect workers from client pressures, but also protect them from confronting their own shortcomings as participants in public service work. … But at other times they are best understood as rigidly held attitudes that partially have their origins in, and are bolstered by, distress over the gap between expectations and perceived capability. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1097

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels the reader’s question of how performative bureaucratic moves ossify into durable dispositions. — connects to: Stereotypes harden when actively defended, not merely lazily deployed; Perceived racial-mixture threat restructured a group’s core character into defensive rigidity — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1383
• SEED: Angle: ‘The Law Says So’ — how discretionary choices harden into unexamined organizational common sense.

Broader Connections

• Perceived racial-mixture threat restructured a group’s core character into defensive rigidity #exemplifies (0.85) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1383
• Stereotypes harden when actively defended, not merely lazily deployed #corroborates (0.75)