Civilized society, are we?

 

So if a society is a group of people, who act in accordance to their shared laws, customs, etc. then it surely follows, that there are other groups of people. And the lowest common denominator, contrary to popular belief, isn’t a Country, a State, maybe a County, and not even a club; it is a human being, an individual.

 

 

I do not dispute the existence of societies, but I do dispute the notion, that society and/or the group thereof is superior to an individual and that any one person. Who in their right mind would think that a group of people is more important than every single being therein or around? All of us are important, all of us are people, and yet we do not form a society becuase we differ in our ways of what we think is best for an individual. Moreover, how do you, whoever you are, know what is best for me, if you are not me? Even if you do, because as a christian I do believe that New life in Christ is the best thing that can happen to anyone, whence do you derive your right to force me to sumbit unto your view, belief or tradition? Since when is one society better than the other? I do not believe any society of people (whether small or big) is superior to another.

 

Bigger problem is that people believe that society can be whatever large group of Men, no matter what is the organization

within like. If coercion and plunder are the way of interactions, I do not believe that it can be called a society, at least it cannot be called civilized. Moreover I do believe that a valid reference to a society can only be that association of people, where people are free to come and to leave, where individuals’s rights are imporant insofar as one is free to act in anyway as the actions do not violate the freedom, life or individuality of another.

 

Hence it is impossible to have a society true to its definition, unless people as individuals are free to organize in groups hence forming societies (whence the word originates: mid 16th century (in the sense ‘companionship, friendly association with others’): from French société, from Latin societas, from socius ‘companion’.) and can only be valid as a term for voluntary associations of (free) Men.

Therefore we form a society only when we do (voluntarily) share before mentioned things, which we cannot legitimately share if we have differences in our acceptence of how much we as individuals are free in the first place. Similarly a libertarian and a socialist fellows can form a “society” only when a socialist denounces his views in the first place, thuis ceassing to be socialist in the first place.

Unless men are free we cannot really have societies true to its core definition, and I would even argue that unless we are all free, we are not even civilized. I say “civilized” because that is another term that we use that means something radically different than what we think it does. W often think that it is only civilized to have a lou, running water, internet, TV and so and so. We think that “civilized” means whatever action that is put forth in the name of society, even if it violates rights of individuals, and we think that it means doing whatever action that treats outside threats as barbarian and ergo non-human, thus uncivilized and unworthy of being called human-like.

 

What we forget is that above mentioned have nothing in common with being civil or civilized. Let’s look:

 

 

 

Above we see that, if I sum it up, that civil basically means non-agressive non-coercive behaviour that recognizes whomever around us humanlike and thus as an individual with life, freedom, individuality and self-ownership. Moreover we see the curious distinction between ordinary people and military as if military were not people. And when we think about it, the military does not really serve to protect and defend, nor does it stand equal to other Men, since their association is clearly set up in a different way as any other “civil” human interaction. In military there is no freedom, no individualitiy, no preferences, it is even trained to kill and be paid for killing; basically it is the exact opposite to humanity, yet at the same time it is set up of human beings. How can therefore this be civilized?

 

 

Some might argue, “But they do exist in the name of the civil people so that we can have our civil society.” but in that instance forget, that all actions they themselves do are civil and must be civil, thus voluntary and noncoercive, in order fo them to live off of their work. And when they do support, even if voluntarily, the existence of military, the State or whatever coercive power, what they are actually doing is throwing out the same civility they claim to want to protect, thus becoming the agents of coercion and uncivility. So in truth Americans are no better than the terrorists they are fighting and in effect they themselves are bing terrorists. It doesn’t matter who started first. It matters that none acted as civilized, that none actually protected the society and thus destroyed it. And it doesn’t have to be the comparison between American soldiers and terrorists in the middle east. You can apply the same principle to police. Look at Ferguson police violence for example. Or quite frankly any coercive power that be. And so, whether through the police, military, or anyone, people are coerced, the delegator (the people, allegedly) and the delegatee are uncivilized and are, however largly anonymously, destroying civility around the globe.

 

 

It wasn’t always like this. “Civil” originates in late Middle English: via Old French from Latin civilis, from civis ‘citizen’. In those times the wars waged, even if in the name of a nation or a kingdom, were generally (true, not always) not supposed to affect civilian population (and still we see that in “western” military codes the soldier is not allowed to kill civilian population, though this code is slowly but firmly being thrown through the window). Moreover Passports (of which I should write sometime as well, because they have an interesting “civil” history) were issued at ports or elsewhere for safe passage, so that possible wars betweeen “uncivilized forces” would not affect them, furthermore even in Europe in the later part of the nineteenth century and up to World War I, passports were not even required for travel within Europe, and crossing a border was a relatively straightforward procedure. Consequently, relatively few people held passports.

 

 

So, are we really civilized society? Are we free within our supposed societies? We are not, and it is quite safe to say that we are not civilized anymore. The first time one or group of people (whether majority or not) delegates another (group of people, also refered as The State) the right to use coercion, it is fair to say that the civility has been lost. Moreover when the majority claims superiority over the minority within what we call society, in that instance the features of society, since not voluntary anymore, become obsolete and we ought to have another term for that state of Men, and not call it society anymore, because it is by definition really not anymore.

 

If I sum it up and use some of Bastiat’s language with my addition: Mutual plundering is not civilized. Therefore as soon as Europe, and since then the rest of the world, invented national democracies, they have since become uncivilized and not even close to a society with all its legitimacy.