The Justifications Standing Behind Such Rules Are To Be Ignored When Those Rules Are Interpreted - Essay Example

Communities Create Rules For Themselves In Order To Guide The Behavior Of Their Members: The Justifications Standing Behind Such Rules Are To Be Ignored When Those Rules Are Interpreted. Introduction Many people confuse rules with law and regulation. There is a vast difference between the both. Law are legal rules that have being made or enforced by someone with legal authority like police or the government. But the rules that are followed in societies and communities are not law. There are merely written by the members of the society who want to guide themselves in doing something good or bad. When the word ‘rules’ come to mind, it is leaves us under the impression of being chained or bound by words and guidelines that shape our lives. Rules are not to be understood. Rules are made not to bind us but to free us. Well, how can rules lead to freedom? The answer is simple. Rules give us a guideline on how to lead a good life. Rules teach us how to be responsible and account for our actions. If we live according to the rules, we will not repent or regret doing anything wrong in our life. Rules are not necessary distinguish between the good and bad aspects of life or to guide our behaviors. Rules can be related to anything. Like tying a simple shoelace seems such a difficult task for the small children. But when they are taught to the rules of tying a shoelace, they can achieve it without any difficulty. Even, all the games have rules. This makes easier to play the games. How? Suppose if you wanted to play monopoly or risk, how would know when to start and when to end. How would you know what is to be done if the game is stuck in a particular situation? More importantly how would you know the game is played? Rules are the easiest answer to the questions. Rules can be made by individuals, families, communities, societies, nations, religions and so on. School rules, traffic rules, safety rules are all written down. But some rules are unwritten. These unwritten rules are in our minds. For example, family rules are not written on piece of paper. But we know that there are rules of family. These sorts of rules are unwritten rules. The same thing is in case of society or community rules. Why Communities Needs Rules? Human beings need rules to guide them. If there are no rules, they would go astray. If suppose all the rules were removed from everywhere they existed, there would be chaos. But after some time eventually someone will write them again. This is because it is in human nature that they need to follow either someone or some rules and regulations. If we review history of communities and societies, not one has existed that did not have rules to guide them. It is true that rules made by the community guide the behavior of the people living in it. This is done to ensure that the community that has being formed runs smoothly and that member of the community have freedom to do what they want without harming or violating other members’ rights. The community rules’ tells us how to behave with strangers, respect each other, be kind and avoid causing harm. Alexis de Tocqueville quotes his view of community and rules in it as follows: After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned them at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided: men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting: such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. (Alexis de Tocqueville) People are often heard saying ‘Rules are meant to be broken.’ That indeed is true. People like to break rules because following the rules makes them slaves to it. They want to be free to do whatever they like. But just imagine, if communities have rules that are broken and still there is chaos, what would happen if there were no rules. For example, if sometime people break a traffic signal, imagine what would happen if there were traffic signals. All the cars would bump into one another. Everyone would blame the other and there would a disaster. This is just one example of rules being violated. There are many other countless examples like the one above. The main question is that if communities did not create rules, would it be in a better state of position? Rules for one community might not be the same for other community. Each community has different rules depending on its needs and the environment. For example Chinese people bow when they meet someone, but according to Jewish it is not acceptable to bow toward each other. A sign on the community center said that ‘Doing graffiti will be punishable!’ The question that arises here is that do communities make rules to stop some mishap that occurred because some person from the community did something offending? The answer can not interpreted in terms of yes or no. Rules change with time. What might be morally and ethically right in the past might not be so in the present. Therefore it would not be wrong to say that time changes the environment which is turn changes or creates new rules. Therefore communities do not create rules for themselves; it is time that makes them do so. Bob Mulder has given his point of view in ‘Keeping house sizes in the existing neighborhood’ that once neighbors used to built fences and turned the good side of the fence towards their neighbors and the fence-posts were on their sides. This was part of an unwritten rule in the community. By doing this the onlookers would know to whom the fence belonged. But as the time passed this polite unwritten rule has changed. Now the fences with the good side are placed facing the owners and the fence-post are turned to the neighbors’ side. The reason is the change in attitude that the owners want to have a good look of their houses. (Mulder, 2007) Communities create rules and are put in place for a purpose, but at times, when people ignorantly follow those rules, it overcomes their very reason for being. For example, has anyone every wondered why people in a community gather in a community centre besides the reason that they want to know the gossips going around in their community. How Are Rules Created? Rules in community are created after some fact. This happens as communities get bigger and larger and it is difficult to control everyone’s behaviors. Rules are created by mutual understanding of the members of the community. They sit down and talk about the issues that surround them. Besides the issues, they talk about how to the community or the neighborhood a better place to live in. Rules are mostly created related to the following purposes: Socialization among the neighbors and members of the community. How can neighbors help each other? How can group relationships be fostered? How can violence in community be controlled? Build a safe and friendly place for the kids and teenagers to grow up in. Beautify the community. The creation of rules also depends upon how big the society is and to what extent the issues in the community affect it and its members. The services provided by the communities are also related to rules. How? As mentioned earlier, rules are part of the solution. Some issues like fire services, libraries, sewage and so on are also part of the issues. The solution to these is that the community depending upon its size provides these services to its members. The rule is that any problem arising because of the above situations have to be notified to the respective community service provider and not to anybody else. Issues That Lead to Rule Creation Like mentioned above, rules are created for guiding human behavior. There are many common issues that have led to different communities create rules that suit there needs. Rules are not created as to be obeyed. Rules represent a solution that is generated when solving any problem or issue in the same manner as laws are created as solutions to different problems. Like for instance, to control the traffic on the road and to prevent any accidents happening as a result of uncontrolled driving, traffic signals were created. To follow the signal is a solution to prevent accidents. This solution came to be the rule or the law. Like above mentioned example there are many issues that different communities face. Let’s see these issues and analyze the solutions that turned into rules. 1) Community Center Almost every big community has its own community center. These community centers are used by the community members for various purposes like social gatherings, parties, public information and various other purposes. When the community centers are used, people disregard the fact that they have to respect the place as taking care of it and not damaging it. After many occasions, people were seen to leave all their stuff behind or take some property belonging to the center with them and sometimes also damage the property. The elder members of the community took notice of this action. To make the people aware of respecting the place, they gave different solutions as follows: To prevent any damage to the property, any decorations or any sort of glitter, bubbles or silly string was not to be used unless special permission was granted. Property of the center such as tables and chair were not allowed to be taken outside the premises. Both the above mentioned solutions were set forth to the members of the community as rules which they had to abide. Any violation of the rules would result in punishment as deemed fit by the elder members of the community. This was just related to the community center. But when people came for social gatherings and other purposes another issue that they faced was the smokers and alcoholics. Those who smoked caused problems for the others. Alcohol drinking in the community was becoming a common aspect. A good community would never allow alcoholics to be born from within them. To deal with these issues smoking was not allowed inside the community center. Alcohol drinking was also banned inside the community center. There are many more rules that have being created by community centers all over US. These are the most common rules that almost all communities follow in order to set an example to other community that they belong to a good and a fine community. 2) Parking Parking is a problem for most of the members of the community. This is because people park wherever they like as this is a free country and we can do what ever we like. Some people park on the streets which sometimes creates problems for other people to park their cars or to go through the street. Therefore to address this issue, a solution was made that cars can only be parked in the driveways of the respective car owner or to park only at one side of the street. Justifications for Rule Creating The rules created by the community are mostly to safeguard the rights of the neighbors of each member. Why is that so? Well it is a saying that ‘Love yourself but love your neighbor more.’ Nobody knows for sure why we should love and respect our neighbors more than ourselves. A lot of rules have being made for such purposes as no neighbor should be harmed, injured, disturbed or abused in any way. Some of the rules followed by almost all the communities are as follows: Each and every member of the community has to shove the snow every morning from their front doors and drive ways during winters. If anyone fails to do, they can be sued by the community members or the one has been injured because of the snow. Members have to make sure that they regularly trim their hedges and cut the grass. This is done to make sure that no leaves or shrubs go over to the neighbors’ side. It is not allowed for the residents of the community to have BBQ in their front yard. They have to do it in their backyard. This is to ensure that smoke from the BBQ does not disturb the neighbor in any way. No playing loud music or having parties after a certain time. Be responsible for the utilities that you use. No one is allowed to smoke indoors as fire systems would detect the smoke and then there would be serious consequences. If any house has any portable basketball hoop in their driveway or anywhere else, they have to secure it by using ropes or filing the base with sand or water and nothing else like blocks etc. (This rule might not be common in all the communities but it is common where I live) To keep the vicinity free of litter and windblown debris. It is a rule to use a tarp bound to cover the dumpster so that no dust or debris can come out. The above rules have being created as a result of some issue. But some of the rules do not have proper justification attached with them. Like for instance why any community would make a rule about having to cut the grass or trim hedges. It does not make sense. A lot of the rules do not make sense. Some of these unjustified rules have resulted in severe consequences for the members of the community. For example according to a Washington Post headline, Salesh Gupta had to give a fine of almost $900 because he was violating one of the community rules. The rule was that portable basketball hoop or any pole has to secure by using ropes of filing the base with water or sand. Gupta used gravel bags to keep the pole upright. (Aryanpur, 2007) Because of one rule that the community had made, a person was fined. A pole can be made to stand upright by using any means necessary. This rule has no roots of justification. Another article from the USA Today also states an example of a community rule that is being broke by a woman but the community cannot do anything about it as protected by a state law. According to this article a community rule states that clothesline is not to be used to hanging or drying clothes. But this women uses clothesline because of a state law that encourages the use of solar power. Therefore the neighborhood cannot do anything about it. (Sharp, 2004) Another example of community rule that prevents some households from doing what they like is written in an article in U.S. Water News Online. According to this article some members of the community are violating a community rule of no brown lawn. The members are trying to save water on their part because of a drought but are warned by the association not to do so as brown lawn is a violation of the rules. (Some homeowner associations not letting residents stop watering their lawns, 2002). The above rule created by the community has no justification as to why lawns have to be green whether in daily lives or in a situation like drought. Some of the extreme cases of rules violating have led to murders. In USA Today it is said that “In Dana Point, Calif., in March, a homeowner whod been battling his association over property renovations was charged with attempted murder after allegedly beating and choking 75-year-old woman who was a resident and board member.” (Sharp, 2004) Another case quoted by Deborah Sharp in USA Today is “In suburban Chicago in July, a 75-year-old woman on a condominium board was fatally shot and her roommate seriously injured. The 67-year-old man accused in the case had been evicted and his possessions strewn in the yard after he failed to pay $640 in overdue assessments, $350 in court costs and $3,133 in attorneys fees.” (Sharp, 2004) Another article from KTAR.com says that a boy wanted to bring home his miniature horse for Christmas. The neighborhood rule stated that ‘neighborhoods rules dont prohibit livestock, but do specifically preclude horses.’ It has cost $1000 to the boy’s father just to get the rule changed and need to have 288 votes from the neighbors so that his son can bring home the horse. (Neighborhood Votes Needed for Boy to Bring Horse Home, 2007). Well what kind of a rule is that any animal can be brought in the neighborhood whether it’s a goat or a camel but not a horse? This is another example of a rule for which there is no justification available as to why such a rule was incorporated. According to one of the top stories in News 8 Austin, a house owner was fined $10 a day from the community association for putting up a sign in his yard. The sign was about supporting the president and the troops overseas. The owner received a letter from his association to remove the sign or he will be fined per day. They said that he was violating a community rule that displaying signs in the yard was prohibited. The rule about the signs does not refer to political signs only but to all the signs displayed by any owner. (Rasmus, 2008) Well the question that arises here is that why communities do not let its members display any kind of signs or flags. It is there own house and they can do what ever they like with. Rules like these cannot be a solution to any kind of problem. They are merely there not to guide the behaviors of the members but to force them to live according to the rules that the association likes. This story is not about just one community or a neighborhood. But it extends to the whole of the nation. Conclusion Keeping the above discussion in view, it can be said that for some of the rules that have been created by the communities to guide the behavior of their members are in no way justifiable. Communities although create rules to guide members, but there should be some basis or logic behind them. Some rules like in the above mentioned cases have no grounds. Why were they created, what was the logic behind them, or which problem does it address. There are many rules related matters and problems that members of the community or neighborhood each day and because of which they have to sacrifice their happiness sometimes in order to live in a good and safe environment. Works Cited “Neighborhood Votes Needed for Boy to Bring Horse Home.” KTAR.com. December 16, 2007. August 10, 2008. “Some homeowner associations not letting residents stop watering their lawns.” U.S.Water News Online. June 2002. August 10, 2008. < http://www.uswaternews.com/archives/arcsupply/2somhom6.html> < http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/columns/story/793245.html > Aryanpur, Arianne. “Sunk by a Neighborhood Rule.” Washingtonpost.com. February 22, 2007. The Washington Post. August 10, 2008. Mulder, Bob. “Neighborhood Votes Needed for Boy to Bring Horse Home.” The News & Observer. November 26, 2007. August 10, 2008. Rasmus, Allie. “Patriotic signs stir neighborhood controversy.” News 8 Austin. August 11, 2008. < http://www.news8austin.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=106296 > Sharp, Deborah. “Neighborhood Rules on Line.” USAToday.com. September 12, 2004. USA Today. August 10, 2008. < http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-12-09-laundrywars-usat_x.htm> Read More