Instant Judgements

Yesterday in my building, a ramshackle crew of students were photographing and filming around the ground floor foyer. They piled their equipment - tripods, and boxes and canvas bags, over every sofa in the main hall. Leads snaked over the floor. No one "official" from our building had thought to put a notice up, and no one was watching to see that they behaved themselves.

It got me thinking. There isn't any corner of the earth where people don't try things on, is there? Why is everyone surprised by the rioting in Dublin, the terrorist activitiy after Sodhim was outsted, the kerfuffle over the published cartoons?

The way a society is run is based on two things - a common agreed belief in fairness and a common and fairly applied system of retribution. It's why no one parks outrageously in central London anymore. One little mistake can get your car towed, enormous fines and hours of just getting everything sorted. The authorities have made it very unpleasant if someone tries to cheat while parking.

So we have a template to hand. Let's copy it.