In fact I've seen the rules mutate, I've seen them applied in an ad hoc (and differing way) to different people, and I've seen directly how they are fundamentally social.
For instance there have always been social pressures against excessive profanity in chatter. It was "enforced" by people giving feedback. In the same way that the rule against 'l33t 5p33k' is discouraged to this day. Unfortunately we had a user (IIRC Alex the Serb) who decided to ignore ad hoc social feedback, and it was decided to create a group of "power users" who could enforce community ideas about behaviour in chatter. The rule mutated - rather than it being up to you after feedback, it became up to what a limited number of people thought. And the rule remained fundamentally something decided socially.
As one of the original power users (I was removed when I went on hiatus), originally the existence of power users was regarded as a secret and bragging about being one was grounds for being removed from the club. Over time people guessed that something was going on, the secret became more open, and now it is no big deal. The social rule mutated.
This evolution continues in many small ways. For instance Re^2: Distribution of Levels and Writeups (sig) prompts questions about whether long signatures are a good thing. If lots of people feel as tye does, then feedback may convince some to shorten (or remove) their signatures. Or it may remain the same. In any case the social standards are not fixed in stone.
However the fact that they are not fixed in stone does not mean that anyone can change them. I believe that you are complaining that you have been unable to change rules that you don't like. And you're dissatisfied by that. Well that's how life works. In a social group, individuals generally can't change the rules for the group very easily. Often there is a lot of inertia. Furthermore the mechanisms by which social rules remain agreed upon are often hard to see - it is easy to see the person saying bluntly, "This will not change." It is hard to see people who, by silent agreement or apathy, make it so that it actually doesn't change.
What I am saying here is simple. Your personal experience with being unable to mutate the rules does not mean that they are immutable. Your personal perception that many rules are laid down by gods misses the fact that gods gained and maintain their position through social mechanisms. And the arbitrariness that you've complained of in the past is a result of the fact that they really do arise in an ad hoc manner.
My further statement is even simpler. I do not know of a voluntary social grouping of humans that does not likewise have a lot of ad hoc, mutable, and social rules that it operates by. Given this knowledge, I can walk into any social group and quickly make that claim with confidence. Because I know that, even if I do not (yet) understand how that is true in this group, I am sure that this group will (like other groups that I've seen) turn out to fit this description.
In reply to Re^6: Musing on Monastery Content
by tilly
in thread Musing on Monastery Content
by Old_Gray_Bear
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