I feel, that yes, there is a good that comes from community. At the same time, its all a matter of finding the balance within that community and stimulating the growth.
I find that a house, represents master/teacher of the student seeker, that when the student reaches mastery, there is tension until that student masters the concepts taught and then trains another, and so on. Where houses build, and the continuous mentor student relationship.
With the stress of working a job, with the issues that come from making bill payments, and so forth. Unless the "house" had a place where its membership was under one roof to train and learn with a business the membership ran in order to pay the bills of not only life, but their education, for materials and supplies. The concept of a true house.
If this does not occur, then no house, can really be a house as it would maintain its own needs and the needs of the membership that works and trains under it. Assembling a group with separate jobs, lives, and getting together like a social club, is a exactly that, a social gathering like a potluck block party. Where everyone plays nicely for the time and then moves on back to their lives, playing at lip services for what ever was supposed to be learned.
That being said, to keep those memberships of such clubs, and societies to get together and "adopt" guidelines, should be done with respect to the areas in which they find themselves. Sometimes its not the sane thing to do, applying laws and rules that other cities do to the membership of their guilds and covens. At the same time, even things like the Black Veil, stand the test of time because its in their interpretation. To have a group slinging those "Laws" or what have you, is the same as the SM community shouting Safe, Sane, Consentual as the politically correct way of saying what they do.
Its the same thing. Trying to take something that is only fit for individuals in small communities, and bridge them with other "factions" I have attempted to do it within the pagan communities of the past, bringing covens together under one banner. It works for a time, but everyones path is different. All roads vampires/mages walk, are ultimately their own, and usually the sooner they learn that, the safer their transition will become. Its not so much that they are better left alone, but that when it comes down to it. Places like this forum are the only places which truely act as "covens" by allowing members from all over the world to interact.
And with that said, there are rules here, just as their are rules for the countries in which we live, guidelines by which even the natural world is ordered to follow.
The vampire is that which is supposed to be outside of all of that. Human but demon. The Sumerians, had a view of the world. That the elder gods put law into place for the safety as protection from the demons that lurk outside. But I ask you, should you not treat vampires, the same as you would the lion? Or the Bear? pack animals but solitary. Like Wolves.
So then, to subject Vampire, to even more law, and regulation, aside from "general" codes of conduct for the student and the seeker, assists in making the general whole more politically acceptable. When you get the individual who already has to follow more rules, guidelines, and law in the day to day. When it is the sexual release, it is the emotional release, it is the metaphysical release, the spiritual release to embrace the shadow of ones self that makes them the antinomian soul, that is the vampire.
Its not gonna work out well in the long run. Especially when you have those people like myself, who travel between different cities so often, every few years, never staying to long, and never really diggin into the little hamlets of vampire culture which are like walking into high school discussions, where education on the self, is still in the awakening stages.
There needs to be better education, the books need to actually guide, and there needs to be community before there can be rules to structure it. Particularly when you have people overburdened with rules, and regulations. They need freedom. To many, to be and identify as a vampire is an expression of this freedom.
For others its the need to consume living currents that in "SSC" environment....We are not by nature, safe, and we all and all obey only the laws we cannot get away with violating, why add more? particularly when it would mean being labeled as a pariah in the "social club" we decide to participate in, on our time off from working, stressing, and living our lives in our own ways.
