If a Society Is to Thrive, It Must Put Its Own Overall Success Before the Well-Being of Its Individual CitizensEssay Preview: If a Society Is to Thrive, It Must Put Its Own Overall Success Before the Well-Being of Its Individual CitizensReport this essayIn order to tackle the question of whether one should be made to conform to the society or the vice versa we must first define what is a society. Society is the the framework for a progressive developtment of the human kind. Laws and regulations are set to deter infractions and penalise the perpertrators. But as the common precept goes; laws are meant to be broken. Individualism and belief in self takes unaccepted elements for judgement by the society and the society is made to empathize and consequentially, change in laws. Thus we are faced with a dilemma whether to the societys interests before the individuals interests.
let us first listen to both the cases before judging. In order for a society to thrive it must set it goals. The first and foremost aim of societies will be protection of its members. For achieveing this aim or any other, it must define the right and the wrong. So the wrong are penalised and deter future occurrences. Thus the members must conform for the good of the society. Otherwise the society will move around only in circles and only anarchy will prevail. Obviously, the effects of anarchy needs no elaboration.
But can one define rules applicable forever. Can a city in the USA define the rights and wrongs for a city in India? No, for infinite reasons. Similarly a present society cannot decide and finlaize for itself in the future. In fact overall success of the society itself cannot be clearly defined. For a business man overall success will be in monetary terms but for a scientist it will be interms of advancement in science. And if you decide to include the interests of both these and others then we must include that of the non-conformist too. Thus the circle is complete and we can infer by this logic that non-conformity or individualism has the right to prevail. So why are you making it so difficult for yourself in trying to conform. History has proven that many laws that society wrote was changed after and they are accepted as the just decision now. A law that wil prevent someone from enfranchising because of race is absurd now. Here, credibility goes to the non-conformists.
Now that we have heard both the cases let us come up with a solution to break this conflict. Conformists assert that Rules and regulations must be defined and enforced is valid so that anarchy is prevented. Individualists evidence that what we define as wrong has a possibility of being right tommorrow is also valid with history itself supporting them. But history also shows that each society has listened and empathised in the past. Laws were changed when it was appropriately taken up with governing bodies. The people in charge are listening to the voice of the society. For example: Presidents have begun to include controversial words like gay and lesbian in there victory speeches. So we conclude that the rule books stay and all those offenced are asked not to lose heart but to fight
We argue in the paper that a lack of respect and empathy is the main cause for the emergence of anarchy. An ideology of violence and dominance, on the other hand, is also part of this struggle for control, meaning an ethic of being more accepting of others and more of a servant while allowing you to do so much as to help others. The book then turns to how one who becomes a rule breaker becomes a master with the new rules and regulations. We argue that a strong ego has allowed a dominance culture to flourish. This can be particularly evident in women who become rulebreakers, especially in high society society.
The book takes on another theme of the self and the ideology of domination. It argues that we use the ideology of domination to our advantage and a weakness. This is shown in the case of a woman from Zimbabwe. After having an affair with a man from China the husband came to her rescue and put her in a “fault of birth”. These encounters in China were quite brutal, for each woman, but it is seen as a normal male act.
An interesting argument is made by Dr Peter Dattley who thinks that social conditioning is something that is a crucial factor to any kind of conflict. He argues that he found in the case of Zimbabwe where government policy led to the imprisonment of thousands of political prisoners, many of whom were men, that this conditioning was a kind of mental health problem. When that condition was considered, he shows that the treatment brought about in Zimbabwe resulted in massive social and political alienation and the loss of confidence that one could take the people and control them, especially the men and women who had left.
This was one of those cases where social conditioning had a good effect on the behaviour of people after one has had an affair. This is clearly one of those cases where social conditioning has a bad effect on the behaviour of people after one has had an affair and this has been shown again and again.
Finally we take on an interesting view about the relationship between the family, where an individual decides in his own right who has to stay with his partner, what rights and freedoms his partner needs to survive without them. In this case we find that the family’s values about human relations and about equality and equalising society have a positive effect on the person with whom he is in relationship. We argue that this means that if you are not accepting of one another your relationship with your partner may develop from a place of social disorganisation that is a kind of addiction or a form of dissociation that is going to cause problems for your family members.
The final book is entitled, “Socialization as a Discipline and the Conflict of Values”. This is an analysis of ethics and social theory from the perspective of moralism and liberalism. In this edition it is important for people who are sceptical of ethical theories to start by looking at the role moralism and liberalism play in ethics and what role they play in the conflicts of values.
[Note: this is an edited version of a previous article in which Dr Peter Dattley first published a paper that discusses some of his arguments in the form of evidence gathered in this