Before I give my answers, I’d appreciate if you, the reader, would consider these three questions yourself. In the West:
- What is society for? What is it set up to do?
- What should society be for?
- What makes a society or group good?
Some years ago I considered the issue of who is let in to Heaven.
Good people, only.
That seemed pretty awful to me. No one wants to go to a hell and I don’t want even bad people to suffer.
But then I asked myself the question, “what makes a society or group good?” I thought back on my own experiences and I came to a simple conclusion: it’s always the people which make a group, of any size, good or bad.
Bad people. Bad group. It is really that simple. Leaders have an outsize influence, but leaders require buy-in from society, at least from the coercive elements and often from much more than that. (See my politics series for more on that.)
People who are cruel, power-hungry, greed, selfish or otherwise have nasty vices or personalities make a group hell. People who are kind, generous, humble and so on make a group good.
Again, it’s that simple.
So the conclusion I came to is that if heavens exist, they don’t let in bad people (or very few) because if they did, they soon wouldn’t be heavens. Bad people go to places with other bad people, and that’s what makes such places hell.
Now let’s move back to the first of our questions. What are our Western societies for. I think it’s close to inarguable that under neoliberal ideology, they exist to make sure that those with power and money retain their power and money and increase it. That premise predicts almost all the actions our societies have taken since around 1979 or so.
If you’re rich and powerful, you run the society and you run it for your own good.
This brings us to our second question. What should a society be for? This is a prescriptive question, there is no “correct” answer. The Pharoah, or Barack Obama or Elon Musk are going to give different questions than you or I, odds are (their true answer, not the one they tell suckers) and so is the Pope, let alone Torquemada. Mennonites have their answer, and so on.
My answer is a simple one. A society, or any group, should make its members happy, good, and if they are happy and good, it should make them strong. It should do that, as much as is possible, for as many of its members as possible and any society which doesn’t is a bad society.
Certainly it is impossible to create a lasting good society if the primary virtues of the society are greed and selfishness, as they generally are under capitalism and as they specifically are under neoliberalism. (New Deal capitalism did not exalt greed and selfishness.)
This is the start of a new series, “The Laws of Heaven”, where we’ll discuss the laws, principles and methods of creating good societies and groups. There is no current possibility of these principles being followed, but knowing what they are is important and opens up the possibility of a better future.
I hope you’ll join me in this exploration.
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Bob
I don’t think the goodness of a society is a product of the general goodness of its people. We are at the mercy of a small minority of psychopaths. They overwhelm the general virtue (or lack thereof) of the masses because they will do whatever it takes to ensure their power and wealth are dominant and unchallenged.
If the 99% are overwhelmingly angels or devils I don’t think is the main factor.
A good society first and foremost would be one where power seekers were neutered as a firm rule.
Jessica
A (westerner) Buddhist lama said that the West won the Cold War (barely) because a society run on greed is better than a society run on envy. Barely.
There are structures at the societal level that have a strong impact. Many western Buddhists and other such that I know believe that if only the people at the top were good people, things would be fine. (If only Obama understood Buddhism….) This is naive and ignores the role of social structure. (Example: The internet and social media in their current form are incompatible with a good society.)
However, neoliberalism has now been so triumphant for so many decades that the personalities at the top have come to mirror the bad structure. Some were selected for their inborn callousness and greed and some grew into it given the opportunity.
Feral Finster
19 There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:
20 And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,
21 And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
24 And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
26 And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
27 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house:
28 For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.
29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.
30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.
31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.
Feral Finster
Bob writeth thusly:
“A good society first and foremost would be one where power seekers were neutered as a firm rule.”
I have long maintained that the principal function of government is to keep power out of the hands of sociopaths. The actual system is almost irrelevant, in 5,000 or so years of recorded human history, we can find successful examples of just about every political and economic system under the sun.
All eventually fail, as sociopaths get in, surely as water corrodes iron.
This is the kernel of The Iron Law Of Oligarchy, and its corollary, The Iron Law Of Institutions.
cc
If a society is a macrocosm of individuals, we could judge the goodness of a society the way we judge the goodness of an individual.So is a society “cruel, power-hungry, greed, selfish” or is it “kind, generous, humble”? Does the society apply the Golden Rule? Both within itself to all of its of its own members, and toward the other societies in the world? The terms and diagnoses we use for individuals (ex. psychopathy, sociopathy, gaslighting) also apply to societies. If one society proclaims itself “Exceptional” or “Chosen”, and above the rules, and claims a God-given (self-claimed) right to subjugate, enslave, exploit, gaslight, and abuse other societies, that’s a problematic society, imo. Certain societies have become pyschopathic in their need to manipulate and control everyone.
StewartM
Certainly it is impossible to create a lasting good society if the primary virtues of the society are greed and selfishness, as they generally are under capitalism and as they specifically are under neoliberalism.
I’ve always thought that Ayn Rand’s outlook was essentially the same as a criminal: “I want what I want and it doesn’t matter to me how or how many get hurt in me getting what I want”. Maybe that’s why she so secretly admired in the child murderer William Hickman:
https://www.alternet.org/2015/01/how-ayn-rand-became-big-admirer-serial-killer
What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: “Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should,” she wrote, gushing that Hickman had “no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel ‘other people.'”
Most criminals don’t have any huge desire to hurt other people just in order to hurt them. They just don’t care about the damage they inflict on others during the process of getting what they want for themselves. Rand’s “morality” of selfishness is thus a perfect description of them.
And how do you run a society and make it ‘good’ when you essentially reward people like that and elevate them to the top positions of leadership and power?
GramSci
We’ve seen, over and over again, that empires fall when the greedy get all the power they crave. The Chinese have been onto this for centuries. They called it the “Mandate of Heaven”. It wasn’t so much a religious concept as a Marxist concept, conceived some two thousand years before Marx.
There’s no simple “law” that a legislature can enact to “mandate heaven”; it takes a whole people who subscribe to the the “dao”, the way.
mago
Good and bad? Most people fall somewhere else along the spectrum, tending perhaps in one direction or the other. Sociopaths definitely are on the bad side of things, although everybody’s gotta love somebody. Their firstborn? Their dog?
I know many spiritual practitioners who are inclined towards the compassionate side of things if only conceptually. Many western Buddhists’ cultural conditioning is so hardwired as to conflict with their spiritual aspirations. (There’s no arguing this.) In fact many believe the MSM propaganda and are ignorant of history, but never mind.
The walls, the skies, the earth itself are painted shades of gray in this relative world.
In the absolute vast expanse there are no distinctions, but we live in the relative world, so . . .
bruce wilder
society is how humans survive as a species
Individually, we are such foolish, feeble, fragile, vicious creatures . . . society is our one means to survive become our means to dominate
DrB
as an Expat Kiwi- New Zealand, for all its faults HAD a functioning social compact post-war through to the 90s … its was aptly entitled “Tall-poppy syndrome” by what tall poppies we had … where anyone too big for their boots (tall poppies) was brought into “social equilibrium” through peer pressure (tall poppy cut off)
This was magisterially translated into our finest sporting team’s “No Dickhead” policy … A dickhead, according to Gilbert Enoka, sports psychologist, is someone who makes everything about themselves, puts themselves ahead of the team, believes they are entitled to preferential treatment, operates deceitfully or seeks unnecessary attention for their work.
The policy emphasises that if an individual cannot change their ways, they should be removed from the team regardless of their talent.
I think it’s a good rule for societies too
Mark Level
To state the obvious that hasn’t been covered (yes, NeoLib ideology took over and destroyed the US starting c. 1979), I think that an equally strong brake on social solidarity is the lack of cultural cohesion, a point that Conservatives sometimes make, and on which they are correct.
Add overwork, ignorance of the RoW, “the tyranny of small differences” amped up by the political duopoly, etc. and America is doomed. Watched a bit of the Icarus Fest today, a panel with Glenn Diesen and Kit Klarenberg of the Grayzone which was immediately (!!) suppressed, they both noted most ‘Muricans have no concept of where Ukraine is, etc. But TPTB drills into people’s heads that “We are a democracy” (sic) and therefore QED “the good guys”, Putin is “an authoritarian” and is demonized more than Joe Stalin was during the Cold War, more effectively too. Back to small diff tyrannies, people will fight over Trans people in sports or bathrooms, what amount of trolling crosses the line, etc.
The system will not allow affordable health care or real regulation of corporations, so things get worse faster no matter who we vote for. (Ok, I’m Captain Obvious)
As a project, USA was nearly always malefic, there were short respites when Lincoln’s “better angels of our nature” came to the fore, e.g. freeing the slaves, Progressive legislation forced on the leaders, 60s feminism, Antiwar movement, Black and Xicano Liberation, etc. Too few and too far between. And even formerly “good” societies like the Scandinavian ones are becoming warlike due to Russophobia and the dream (doomed thankfully) of preserving Western Hegemony. At least Trump is shitting all over US credibility, economics, and future survivability, Climate Change being a “hoax religion”, to the point that people I never would’ve expected are getting radicalized. (No solar power, or geothermal, etc., only “Drill Baby Drill” and cook the atmosphere faster.)
Likely too late, I think, and I think Ian’s advice to get out if you can continues to be relevant.
bruce wilder
i have a question: how intentional can a society be?