The Laughing Wolf

What Is Society Papa?

In one of my posts yesterday, I mentioned a very slippery and dangerous term: Society. The word has become one of the most misunderstood and misused terms, and while the term “fascism” is gaining in that department “society” remains far more deadly.

The latter is used very deliberately. When something kills thought, debate, and all forms of consideration, then it is very deadly. Society is just such a word, and a few minutes time needs to be taken to look at what it is, and what it is not, so that some level of reason can be reached. So, just what is society, Papa?

In simplest terms, society is any group of people who share common traits. This can be a society of opera fans who only share that one trait, or it can be a larger social community, such as a community club. In political debate, society is the conglomeration of all the population of a given location, from the smallest area to the entire world.

This is not terribly realistic in the global sense. For the concept as put forward in political usage, society requires a number of shared values and concepts. In smaller groups, this is very easy to obtain but becomes increasingly harder once larger numbers and larger geographical areas are brought into the mix.

At its core, society requires common language, common history, common education, common literature, etc. This common block of shared knowledge, experience, and philosophy is not the be-all and end-all, but is simply a foundation from which all members of society can build. It provides a touchstone, so that there are common references for all members.

Public schooling was never intended to try and create a race of Einsteins. One of the major philosophical points behind public education was to create this common base for society. Through schools, students/citizens were to get the same basic building blocks in terms of literature, language, etc. One of the major failings of modern public education, in my opinion, is that this point has been dismissed out of hand so that instead of lowering barriers between groups, the isolation and estrangement is increasing.

Society requires this common base or point-of-reference for a very important reason: trust. To have a society requires that all the members understand one another on as many levels as possible, so that trust exists. Without trust, all the artificial constructs of society, from banking to justice, can not exist.

It used to be taught in theory, if not in practice, that we were all Americans. Today, we are taught that we are Scottish-Americans, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Native-Americans, etc. While we should take pride in our roots, we need to drop the hyphenated bull. We are Americans, plain and simple. We need to re-discover the commonality that is real society, so that we can celebrate it as well as the diversity.

We also need to be reminded, forcefully and often, that “Society” is not a person or legal entity. It is simply an agreement between individuals to follow certain rules and conventions of behavior. It is personal agreement between individuals writ large. “Society” can’t force anyone to do anything, it can’t take responsibility for anything, and it can’t blame anything. Such things can only be done by individuals.

So, what is society, Papa? It is each and every one of us. We need to remember this, and the reality of society, and act – with honor and intelligence – accordingly.

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