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1、Page 5“How Unwritten Rules Circumscribe Our Lives”The restaurant was almost full. A steady hum of conversation hung over the room; people spoke with each other and worked on their meals.Suddenly, from a table near the center of the room, came a screaming voice: “Damn it, Sylvia.”The man was shouting
2、 at the top of his voice. His face was reddened, and he yelled at the woman sitting opposite him for about 15 seconds. In the crowded restaurant, it seemed like an hour. All other conversation in the room stopped, and everyone looked at the man. He must have realized this, because as abruptly as he
3、had started, he stopped; he lowered his voice and finished whatever it was he had to say in a tone the rest of us could not hear.It was startling precisely because it almost never happens; there are no laws against such an outburst, and with the pressures of our modern world you would almost expect
4、to run into such a thing on a regular basis. But you dont; as a matter of fact, when I thought about it I realized that it was the first time in my life I had witnessed such a demonstration. In all the meals I have had in all the restaurants, 1 had never seen a person start screaming at the top of h
5、is lungs.When you are eating among other people, you do not raise your voice; it is just an example of the unwritten rules we live by. When you consider it, you recognize that those rules probably govern our lives on a more absolute basis than the ones you could find if you looked in the lawbooks. T
6、he customs that govern us are what make a civilization; there would be chaos without them, and yet for some reason even in the disintegrating society of 1982 we obey them.How many times have you been stopped at a red light late at night? You can see in all directions; there is no one else around, no
7、 headlights, no police cruiser idling behind you. You are tired and you are in a hurry. But you wait for the light to change. There is no one to catch you if you dont, but you do it anyway. Is it for safetys sake? No; you can see that there would be no accident if you drove on. Is it to avoid gettin
8、g arrested? No; you are alone. But you sit and wait. At major athletic events, it is not uncommon to find 80,000 or 90,000 or 100,000 people sitting in the stands. On the playing field are two dozen athletes; maybe fewer. There are nowhere near enough security guards on hand to keep the people from
9、getting out of their seats and walking onto the field en masse. But it never happens. Regardless of the emotion of the contest, the spectators stay in their places, and the athletes are safe in their part of the arena. The invisible barrier always holds.In restaurants and coffee shops, people pay th
10、eir checks. A simple enough concept. Yet it would be remarkably easy to wander away from a meal without paying at the end. Especially in these difficult economic times, you might expect that to become a common form of cheating. It doesnt happen very often. For whatever the unwritten rules of human c
11、onduct are, people automatically make good for their meals. I know a man who, when he pulls his car up to a parking meter, will put change in the meter even if there is time left on it. He regards it as the right thing to do; he says he is not doing it just to extend the time remaining even if there
12、 is sufficient time on the meter to cover whatever task he has to perform at the location, he will pay his own way. He believes that you are supposed to purchase your own time; the fellow before you purchased only his.I knew another man who stole tips at bars. It was easy enough; when the person sit
13、ting next to this man would depart for the evening and leave some silver or a couple dollars for the bartender, this guy would wait until he thought no one was looking and then sweep the money over in front of him. The thing that made it unusual is that I never knew anyone else who even tried this;
14、the rules of civility0 stated that you left someone elses tip on the bar until it got to the bartender, and this man stood out because he refused to comply.There are so many rules like these rules we all obey that we think about them only when that rare person violates them. In the restaurant, after
15、 the man had yelled “Damn it, Sylvia” and had then completed his short tirade, there was a tentative aura among the other diners for half an hour after it happened. They werent sure what disturbed them about what they had witnessed; they knew, though, that it violated something very basic about the
16、way we were supposed to behave. And it bothered them which in itself is a hopeful sign that things, more often than not, are well.约束人们日常行为的隐性规则餐馆里座无虚席，四周缭绕着低沉平稳的话语声。客人们一边聊天，一边享用着盘中美餐。突然，一声怒吼从靠近餐厅中央的桌子上传来。“该死，西尔维亚你”一位男士扯足了嗓门大叫道。他把脸涨得通红，冲着对座的女士咆哮了有十五秒钟。但在这么一家宾客满堂的餐馆里，整个过程仿佛持续了一个小时。其他客人都安静下来，所有人的目光都聚集到这位男士身上。他自己也一定有所察觉，刚一开口便匆匆停止。他只好放低声音，用别人都听不到的音量抒发完了心中的怒火。大家着实吃了一惊，因为这种意外的确少有发生。其实并没有任何法律条文规定，不准在公共场所大发雷霆。况且在现代社会，各种各样的压力扑面而来，就算这种事情时常发生，也合乎情理。
