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Printer-Friendly ModeCommon sense respect can eliminate unnecessary policies
The Vanguard Vision
September 28, 2009 —
It’s a beautiful thing when we look out for one another. As Cardinals from another mother, we probably can all agree that it’s nice to receive a helping hand, a word to the wise, a polite suggestion from time to time.
“Watch out, that floor is wet.”
“Excuse me, but would you mind smoking a little farther from the building?”
“Cindy, I think you’ve had too much to drink. Put your shirt back on and let me drive you home.”
Wouldn’t the world be nice if we could rely on each other like this a little more often? And wouldn’t it be nice if we all did our part to keep each other in check to a reasonable degree, shaking off the few times where we are met with hostility for our good intentions?
Unsolicited peer policing can be a very valuable tool. But it hasn’t been quite enough in a few areas of campus life. Or, at least, so say certain policies that have crept up to pick up our slack.
In January 2008, a revised campus smoking policy pushed puffers out to designated parking lots when the 25-feet-from-buildings rule was deemed ineffective.
This year, the University compensates a handful of our peers to monitor our football tailgating etiquette.
Our point is not necessarily to pass overt judgment on either policy. Both ideas likely initially stemmed from some good intentions, hopefully with health and safety at the core. What we really want you to do is think seriously about what events led to the instituting of such rules.
When did it become too hard to ask others to respect the rules? Maybe we gave up too soon reasoning with those who smoke, and maybe we dropped the ball at tailgating, getting a hoot out of the binge drinkers rather than cutting them off.
So it might not always be easy to stand up in a crowd and do the right thing. Nobody really wants to be a colossal buzz kill if they don’t have to be.
But when we don’t suck it up and say something, we don’t have much room to gripe about the alternatives.
There are arguments to be made about how effective, fair or necessary the smoking policy and tailgating “wingmen” are. From a wider viewpoint, though, we can see that if we’d just respected each other enough to verbalize our dissatisfaction with behaviors in the first place, we might have avoided both movements, and this space would be filled with campus dining coupons.
It’s probably hard to write this all off as a case of “the Man” coming down on us, restricting our rights, as if inconveniencing smokers and turning the lights on over college parties provided some sick sort of pleasure.
Rather, the mediation comes about when we don’t like something. Students decided the original smoking policy was flawed. Students decided they didn’t like police officers getting close enough to check the born-on date of their beer cans. Not all students agreed or cared about either situation, but enough of them spoke up to inspire some changes.
Some may be completely comfortable with the direction these both issues are heading; others may wish to change that direction. Still others probably wish we’d been able to nip these things in the bud without getting to this point.
Policies in general can be a great defense against anarchy, but when it comes to such issues as the aforementioned, we might try in the future to help each other out before the University decides to help us first.