Community Codes

Every community has a code of social conduct which doubles as a protection device for its social cohesion. Without it, community life would be far too disruptive. Everyone coming into the community, whether they were long or short-term residents would have far too much influence on the community and the nature of its social interaction, without the community itself having a say in whether it desired such changes in its code of social behavior.

It is not that each community has some sort of formal mechanism for dealing with challenges to its code of behavior, rather, the process seems to be automatic, and operates perfectly well unattended. The same dynamic is operative at the small group and national levels as well, and these differing group codes of behavior may or may not fit well together.

Decoding a group can take up to two years or more to accomplish. However, if the newcomer does not complete the task by some maximum time limit set by the by the group, the person is usually rejected from further access, as an intruder, or a disruptive influence, who doesn't seem to be able or willing to fit in to the norms of group behavior.

Decoding the group or community is done intuitively. By trial and error, the person is expected to pick up the group norms of social interaction. The children's campfire game of "magic" simulates the process quite well. A magician is sent out of the group, while an accomplice has the group select an object to be the "designated object" for the round. The magician returns and tries to guess which of the objects is the designated object. The accomplice points to a series of objects and at some point throws in a cue which tells the magician that the next object will be the designated object. The group tires to guess what the cue is. When someone thinks s/he knows what the cue is, s/he goes out of the group and tries to be the magician. If successful, the secret is not revealed. Instead, people keep on trying to guess what the cue is, until it becomes obvious to most. So it is with community codes. Once the items are discovered, they are used but seldom talked about. In fact, most residents native to a community could not articulate them but could spot when they are broken. They are intuitively absorbed over time.

The image of a burglar alarm on a public building is a good way of looking at the fact that there are usually several "digits" in a community or group's code of behavior. A newcomer is given a certain amount of slack time in which "outside behavior" is tolerated, but beyond which it is expected to conform to that of the group. As with the burglar alarm, one gets "90 seconds to punch in the code" or the police are called and the person is rejected as an intruder. The burglar alarm "digits" do not change very much over time, but can change periodically. In general, a group or community's behavioral code items change very slowly as well, usually one at a time, rather than a complete change, and stretching over many years. The larger the group or community, the slower the change of its behavioral code.

Before one has the community or group "decoded" it is often a very difficult situation. It is very easy to offend people or speak out of turn on some subject which the group or community does not wish to have discussed in public. The scene reminds me of an episode of "Mash" where a child wanders into the minefield surrounding the hospital camp in pursuit of a ball. The camp is in turmoil as someone has to go out and rescue the child, and does so by using a map of the location of the mines, hoping it is accurate. Operating in a community before decoding its mores of social interaction is like walking through a minefield without the aid of a mine-map.

After decoding a group or community, one can do just about anything, or as one person put it so vividly, "pee in front of the post-office". One knows the things which can and can not be done in the group or community and finds ways to do what s/he wants within the broad guidelines of the code of social behavior. Some people are excellent "boundary crossers", and some diplomats are excellent at moving desperate groups along in some sort of integrated and coordinated action such that none of the various groups' "codes" are violated by doing so.

I believe that such codes are not merely examples of unnecessary stubbornness, but rather, they are critical to the maintenance of internal group cohesion. Without such agreed upon modes of social interaction, no group life would be possible over the long haul. It is for this reason that such group mores are virtually non-negotiable.

The long existence of such group access codes is evidenced in the ancient Babel storyGenesis 11:1-9, where the author reflects on the nature and purpose of such codes within the larger cosmic perspective from which he writes. The story brings a fascinating new twist and depth of meaning to this issue of community codes, combined with the insight that the cues are primarily linguistic.

Some examples of inter-group code items show their wide variation:

The decision to continue to reside in a community or to move on can be made either during the decoding period or after successful entry into the community. Sometimes, a person cannot grasp the nature of the social interaction and finds the group closed to further attempts of social interaction. It is very difficult to continue in such a context without social interaction. Sometimes once one finds out the nature of a group's community code and/or the nature of the motivations behind such mores, the person decides that such a style of group interaction is just a bad mix, and moves off to a more compatible community. Such departures may or may not be amicable.

navigation