I've decided to not read signs. It is not just the bad grammar (that needless capital letter or that apostrophe). It is that I have found, on the whole, that they tell you nothing that you couldn't decide on your own using your own common sense or common courtesy.
Laminated diktat
Would you run headlong towards the cliff edge if the sign hadn't warned me? Throwing a child off a slide head first with his arms tied to his side might be in your scheme of sensible behaviour but I suspect you'd make the right call regardless of the helpful bullet point list from the authorities.
If you have ever taken a thermos flask and sarnies into a cafe and tucked in without buying any of their food, you are a bit odd, I wouldn't need that specified to me by laminated diktat.
You can make these calls yourself and save yourself the time of reading the sign.
Weber - the steel cage
Weber had spotted that modern life and its institutions had become rule bound. That bureaucracies formed around institutions and with them brought their own procedures. From a company's HR team to a state's tax regime. Sport need rules but its joy is suffocated by an ever expanding list of micro-rules.
You can't escape these structures. The interesting observation that came with it was that following procedures came to replace making personal moral judgements. Follow the rules and you don't need to make a choice. It's easier.
He called this the steel cage of bureaucracy (usually mistranslated as iron cage).
I heard an old timer policeman on the radio bemoaning the young plods for being unable to exercise judgement, instead being bound to the rulebook. He might have given the biscuit thief a warning, the newbies will literally lay down the law.
Isn't it better to think through your own moral judgements? Unthinking morality is less valuable and slavish rule following always leads to the Somme and the gulag.
Apologise after
A brilliant rule of thumb is to just apologise afterwards. If your own common courtesy compass leads to conflict with parky, saying sorry once is still quicker than having to spend hours reading signs.
I can't find a thinker who has worked this up though. So this folk morality isn't the territory of this blog, even though it works.
Do I need to say don't ignore road signs? No because your own judgement will have concluded driving on the right hand side of the road (UK) is stupid.
I trust that you are nice, do what you think is right in the park.
