Rules Chapters 16-19 Assignment A

Rules for Travelers

 1.No fouling near camp site.

  2.Keep drinking water clean.

    3.Eat rich food in private unless you offer to share with hungry

    4.Relationships are permitted if and only if the man commits long term and agrees to protect child.

   5.The privacy of a tent must be valued.

   6.What is in the past stays in the past.

   7. Absolutely no seduction, rape, murder, theft, or adultery.

   8.The right to refuse, accept, offer, decline help.

   9. Stay quiet when camp is sleeping.

   10.Feed the hungry.

       
                       One of the rules discussed in chapter 17 asserts that if someone is hungry in the camp and you have the ability to feed them you must do so. A further explanation in the chapter emphasizes that by feeding someone who is hungry you insure that if you ever are in that unfortunate position someone will provide for you. In practice this rule attempts to broaden the wellbeing of the community by expanding the responsibility to the whole community. This rule also functions as an equalizer. It reminds campers that just because someone has less than you does not mean they are less than you. When a camper shares his food with a hungry camper it should not be interpreted as one giving to the needy and the other receiving from the fortunate, but one doing his or her civic responsibility to one another. This rule runs on the idea that there will always be someone able to help another person. If everyone was starving in the camp the system would collapse. So this rule places tremendous hope in the migrants and their ability to find jobs. 

               Another rule discussed in chapter 17 prohibits short term love affairs. Instead the rules assert that romantic relationships have to be a long term commitment between the two partners. When thinking about the struggles each family goes through with this journey it becomes clear that bonds and relationships are integral for survival. In that case, to have a onetime affair, especially one that is so intimate, would make it emotionally difficult to stay aloof. The camper society relies so much on the relationships they form that having a non-committed relationship could be detrimental to the psyche of the two people involved. Another function of this rule is to prevent drama that could arise with a short tryst. This function focuses more on keeping peace within the community rather than people’s personal lives. Less gossip, means more is able to be done and the easier it is for people to work together. The book mentions these relationships are dangerous to the world of the campers, overall having a mix of commitment and non-commitment would not work in this society, it would cause more problems than the society could handle.