That he did or did not put the rules in himself may not actually make a difference.
There's a logic puzzle/story, of a primitive tribe trying to determine whether each individual person in the tribe has blue eyes or not, with an offer of a great prize claimable at exactly noon on any day, if they guess correctly, but tragedy if they guess wrong. The tribe has "X" blue-eyed people, and "Y" brown-eyed people. No reflective surfaces. They're mute except an oracle, who says one phrase: "I see two eye colors, someone has blue eyes".
That much was obvious, X > 1, Y > 1. Everyone can see someone has blue eyes. But now, because it was spoken, the entire tribe now knows everyone's eye color, including their own, despite no mirrors or additional communication... Except the Oracle. The Oracle only knows they have blue eyes, but did not know it prior to their statement. How?
It's a counter-intuitive little logic puzzle, but it relates here just as well. Something that is obvious, and seemingly pointless to say, can collapse a variable (or rather, draw focus to it), which allows for significant change to a situation, even if nothing was actually done, merely because a figure of authority initiated it. People need a starting line, not a solution necessarily, and revoking an order he did not give provides that starting line.
That he did or did not put the rules in himself may not actually make a difference.
There's a logic puzzle/story, of a primitive tribe trying to determine whether each individual person in the tribe has blue eyes or not, with an offer of a great prize claimable at exactly noon on any day, if they guess correctly, but tragedy if they guess wrong. The tribe has "X" blue-eyed people, and "Y" brown-eyed people. No reflective surfaces. They're mute except an oracle, who says one phrase: "I see two eye colors, someone has blue eyes".
That much was obvious, X > 1, Y > 1. Everyone can see someone has blue eyes. But now, because it was spoken, the entire tribe now knows everyone's eye color, including their own, despite no mirrors or additional communication... Except the Oracle. The Oracle only knows they have blue eyes, but did not know it prior to their statement. How?
It's a counter-intuitive little logic puzzle, but it relates here just as well. Something that is obvious, and seemingly pointless to say, can collapse a variable (or rather, draw focus to it), which allows for significant change to a situation, even if nothing was actually done, merely because a figure of authority initiated it. People need a starting line, not a solution necessarily, and revoking an order he did not give provides that starting line.