Posted by Crazy_Charlie on November 4, 2004, at 4:36:03
In reply to clarification of 'arbitrary' » Dr. Bob, posted by alexandra_k on October 27, 2004, at 20:40:57
"Why must we resort to rules rules and more rules?
That makes me very sad indeed.
I just trust my common sense best I can, and trust yours enough so that you realise I am doing that and so I trust I will not be blocked for breaking some arbitrary and obscure rule that you have to enforce regardless of context because it is there in the authorised version of the posting rules."I am not going to join this discussion as such... but here you are indeed hitting me in my chest with words that could have been my own. Since this will be a fairly long post about nothing, I am not expecting anyone to read it or answering it, but i will still write.
Rules. I grew up in a country that is said to be the one country in Europe that is most similar to America in a social and cultural context, Norway. In the depth of my heart: I don't know what that means. I have never been in the U.S., and I haven't met that many Americans. I have a friend in New York that I love very much, she must be the most heartwarm person on this planet. But I don't have a clue of how representative she is for Americans in general. I also believe in uniqety and individuality, we are all valuable and wonderful in our own way.
I grew up in Norway. Norway is a country that has many many rules. Rules that can make me puzzled for so many days, I'm just wondering... why do we have a rule that seems to make everything worse? Think about this dilemma for example: many people havetheir life ruined by a problem of falling asleep. lets say that half of these people could be cured by using Melatonine that they could for example get on prescription from the doctor. Now, I suppose that since many of you are Americans you know what Melatonine is so I am not going to tak ethe taime to explain it, you can ask if you have read this far and wonder.
One problem remains though for people with this type of sleeping disorder in Norway. You see, it is illegal to sell or import that to Norway. The reason is that it's a new discovery, we don't know enough about long term effects soandsoandso. reasonable. Except that those 50% of all with a sleeping disorder that gets their life ruined that could have been helped with Melatonin... they have to get to the doctor and get something else instead. For example benzodiazepines.
Now, please understand that growing up in Norway has made me aware of the fact that I KNOW that there are many people who find this perfectly logical and reasonable. I am really really sorry if you find me offensive now, and I hope you can forgive me, because I really don't see th elogic in this.
But this is just an example of how rules works in Norway. We have rules for absolutely everything. And if a new problem pops up, then we make it illegal. That will sure solve the problem. If there isn't a "law made rule", it is a social rule. And everyone is making great trouble making sure you also follow the social rules. Sigh.
Believe me. I am not an anarchist, I do not prefer chaos. But I am not obsessed with order either. I find a world that is filled with silly rules killing on creativity and intelligence. I think that people should be allowed to think for themselves an dtake responsibilities of good behaviour. A system that is propped with rules will not allow that. It makes us robots in Utopia.I moved to the netherlands. It's not so far from Norway, but if you view it culturally, it is very different. The Netherlands is absolutely not a perfect country, it has quite a few obvious flaws for that. But hey. It doesn't exist a such thing as a perfect country, and why would we want to have that? But it surprises me on some areas, in such a positive way that I sometimes wonder if I weren't really supposed to be Dutch from the beginning of... I just ended up in the wrong country.
The Netherlands is the most tolerant country I have ever heard of. I experience time after time that here things work perfectly fine without the ten rules we have in Norway concerning the same case 8without specific examples right now- I have to get done writing soon). And even though this is a country with 16 million inhabitants. In Norway we have 4,5 inhabitants. What difference does that make? Well, the 16m people in the Netherlands is put on an area that is something like 10% of the size of Norway. People here are stacked on top of each other compared to Norway. Norwegians would have been confused and gone crazy in such a situation without a whole bunch of rules to control the situation. here no one seems to notice it. Even mor einteresting is the fact that it's also several different cultures mixed together. It seems like the whole world is represented in the Netherlands. You learn pretty quick when things like Chinese New Year is for example, since that is loudly celebrated amongst the Chinese every year. The Africans are having markets where they sell typical african stuff, and so have the turks. You can buy whatever food you can think of, whatever clothes. They even have aboriginal museums.
Norwegians get insecure if someone from a different culture start suggesting something that isn't "typical" Norwegian. For example that muslim girls bust be allowed to wear hijab at work. Here no one would have to raise their voice about that, because no one would think of making it illegal in the Netherlands. In Norway, they are discussing this right now, up and down, inside out.
Norwegians think Norway is the superb place to live, the best place in the world. We think we have the best political system, that no one is poor in Norway, no one suffers. If someone get depressed, you might hear the comment "what is he nagging about? Doesnt he know that he lives in th ebest country in the world?". With all these rules, it has to be perfect, right?
When I was a pregnant student, I could hardly afford to buy food, because as a student I didn't have the right to any kind of supprt. I was too sick to work, so I could barely continue my studies. But hey, I know that I was lucky, because I managed. There are thousands of people in Norway that are starving on a regular basis... but I somethimes wonder if it is illegal to talk about them? I worked in a prison for 8 months as a clinical psychologist. I met people that were doomed because they didn't follow the rules they couldn't understand. That made them get put in to an even stricter system that they don't understand. I met many people in that prison that had had such a life that I felt like congratulating them for still being alive. I heard storied about 10 year old boys that had never spoken to a grown up. I heard stories av maltreating, beatings, sexual abuse, torturing. Things behind the doors that every Norwegian know about, but a scial rule makes it illegal to mention. I have friends who has experienced all the shit that these people had, but that had managed to stay out of prison. Now, well. In a way good that they are put in to prison and at least picked up somewhere?
The only problem is that the prison is full of rules reflecting the social world to the degree that it is ridiculous. I was treating a drug addict for example... a person who had been in and out of jail the last 15 years. I had agreed with my patient that now it was about time to do something about that, so he signed up on a treatment program. Then we applied for the prison, stating he had severly drug problems and needed to go through such a program to get help. he was denied becaus ethe urine samples taken from him the last three months proved that he had been using drugs in prison. He could not be scheduled for a drug abus etreatment program before he was clean. I went to someone a bit hight up in the system and asked me to explain the logic behind that, but he got mad when I asked about it. Because "everyone had to understand such a simple matter. A rule is a rule, and the rule is stating that to get any kind of advantage you have to show positive behaviour in the prison. Drug treatment is viewed as an advantage because it is assumed that the prisoner will benefit from it. A positive urine sample is a negative behaviour. Thereby, he can't go".
A collegue of mine asked the director of the prsion if she could start a drug treatment group in the prison, and the response was that "a prison is not a treatment place, but a punishment". Fair enough. I still have a problem understanding what makes this such a good thing that we keep up with it?
I agree with the previous poster. I think it is scary when common sense is swapped out with rigid rules. Who does it benefit?
Just asking
(yes I know this is probably not the right board, but I dunno which board would be correct and how to redirect it).
Charlie
poster:Crazy_Charlie
thread:407882
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20041027/msgs/411453.html