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Not all unofficial communication is illegal. However, it is the ubiquitous illegal urban graffiti that gets the most attention.
Every day people run red lights, write bad checks, commit arson, robbery, and assault--far more dangerous crimes than writing graffiti. The visibility of graffiti is proof of our fragile hold on "order." We can see the accumulation of illegal pictures and names on public surfaces, wheras most other crimes occur in relative obscurity. One of the main reasons graffiti persists even though the penalties get harsher is the power of the idea that "THEY (the police, the authorities, the government, the public) can't stop us." The illegal writers remind the rest of us that the effectiveness of laws is dependent on people's willingness to obey them. Graffiti persists because there are more writers than there are police officers to stop them. |
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| George Melly, 1975. From the introduction to the book The Writing on the Wall, by Roger Perry. Elm Tree Books, London, 1976. |
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Writing comments or underlining in library books is a form of unofficial communication. A library worker pencils the call letters in the corner of the page. A vandal underlines, draws, or writes on those same pages.
Those previous readers have either marked the trail for a student in a hurry or ruined the experience of discovery for a more leisurely reader. The underlined words are permanently distinguished from the others around them. |
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