This article discusses how society, as a whole, tends to maintain the status quo. The individuals that make up society, in one way or another, enact the will of the society. This characteristic of society makes it easy to explain its rejection of new key ideas that are typical of another society that follows the existing one. For example, feudal lords despised “merchants,” just as soldiers previously looked down on “land rats,” and later, capitalists scorned “paper worms.” Today, the majority of people, especially those in the ruling class, regard the idea of openness with disdain, viewing it as something shameful and disgraceful. Why is this the case?
Table of Contents
The connection between a person and society
Every person considers themselves rational. At least because they are capable of self-reflection. However, how do we think? We think in words. Words are language. Language is a social achievement, and we cannot think in categories or about things that do not exist in the language of our culture. Take, for example, making an English speaker think about the blue sky. It turns out that our individual reason is a product of the society we live in and depends on that society; thus, it thinks within the framework of that society and its values. The behavior of a rational person within society will be expected or justified. We even say: “That’s reasonable.” But is it truly reason if the highest criterion for its manifestation is following an algorithm or heuristic? Yes, there are very intelligent people. At the same time, they are simply individuals capable of considering more factors and extrapolating results further than others, taking on a certain level of risk.
Who has read or heard about science fiction involving certain races that represent a mega-mind with irrational individuals, like ants, or conversely, a unified consciousness where each member of the race is a cell? Well, there’s no need to look far.
On the other hand, let’s imagine an individual separated from their peers. A monk in eternal seclusion. How can we know that he is rational without using contact or actions from another rational being? a culture close to his own Well, I mean, in the case of a monk, I’m referring to any other person, not Lura from Omicron Persei 8. Is it possible to conduct a thought experiment that evaluates a mind by an unreasonable observer? A machine, devoid of knowledge, that does not interact with the subject but only observes and reports in binary: “rational” and “not rational”?
So, is everything that bleak? Fortunately, no. After all, someone is making great discoveries, right?
Society as a separate entity
What are “public interests”? What is this myth that we’ve been fed since childhood? Do they even exist? Does it make sense for me to consider the “public” benefit of sealing off a stinky garbage chute if it’s personally more convenient for me to just dump my trash into that smelly pipe? Where is the line between being a miser and healthy selfishness?
Cell
To understand the essence of public interests, it’s worth looking at the building block of society.
Let’s take a family planning a vacation. Each member has their own personal interest: Dad wants to go to Thailand, Mom wants to go to Italy, and the son wants to go to the Caucasus with his friends. Now, let’s look at what the “public interest” is in this case. The public interest doesn’t care about the individual interests of each family member. In this case, our society is the family itself. And this family wants to continue its existence. Notice that this desire is separate and independent from the immediate opinions of its individual members. It’s like an entity that has emerged and exists based on its components. We perceive it as an entity, but we don’t fully acknowledge this. So, this family—this seemingly ephemeral entity—wants to spend their vacation together, preferably in Turkey. But how is this realized at the “atomic” level?
On an “atomic” level, people come together in a family because it is more beneficial for them. It makes their lives easier, and they are better able to achieve their life goals. In general, they derive some measurable benefit from the family, which we will denote as A. For example, let’s say that for dad, the benefit of a trip to Thailand is a certain value B, while the benefit of a trip to Turkey is a value C. Dad (and the same goes for mom) wants to go to Thailand because D = B – C is clearly greater than zero. But, attention! Dad will go to Turkey because D < A. And the family will continue to exist.
What if dad just leaves and goes to Thailand? Well, it’s simple — the family will suffer or face very serious consequences. This will likely happen when D>A. There will be a clear violation of family (or social) interests. The family will suffer from this, although its members may not.
Organization
It’s now more interesting to move on to more complex structures, such as organizations. An established organization has its own interests. At the same time, just like in any other structure made up of people, there arise interests of the structure that do not always align with the interests of the individuals who make up that structure. The components of the structure—people—always have a choice in such cases: either to follow the interests of the structure or to leave it. It’s important to understand that a specific person’s presence in a particular structure is beneficial to them for some reason. This isn’t about someone simply turning around and walking away; rather, each individual constantly weighs the benefits they gain from being in the structure against the losses they incur when the structure demands actions that are not advantageous for them.
Accordingly, the structure has a degree of freedom within the limits where the immediate majority finds more benefit in being part of the structure than in breaking away from it. Practically, we end up with a separate living entity that has its own motives, goals, and values. This entity takes care of the resources it uses for its existence and growth. It would be very misleading to think that there is someone who is the director of the structure, its owner, or sponsor, who completely controls it. No, they do not control it. They influence it to some extent and serve the interests of the structure. The sponsor provides for it, the board acts as a nervous system responding to external signals, and the owner may use it in some way, but no more than an owner uses a dog. In other words, the owner cannot make the dog’s heart beat differently, but they can make it fetch a stick. And the dog will be subordinate to the owner only to the extent that the owner does not harm or mistreat it.
Do you want a simple example? If an organization is facing financial difficulties, the board (the nerve center) gathers and starts secretly deciding whom to surrender to or which new investor to find, without the owner’s knowledge. Notice that it’s called a “nerve center,” not a brain. Structures are not rational. They have no brains. Their reasoning is no more developed than that of an insect. Why? Because the individual minds within the structure mutually cancel each other out, just like magnetic domains compensate for each other’s magnetic fields in an unmagnetized piece of iron.
Reflexivity and Reason
To understand why minds within society mutually compensate for each other, it is worth considering again what we mean by “mind.” Should we consider behavior that is completely rational and determined by external circumstances and available information as a manifestation of the mind?
If so, then any machine is rational. If not, then a group of individuals, each rational in their own right and exhibiting fluctuations in relation to rationality, must compensate for each other, like the fish, pike, and crayfish in the well-known fable. Like air molecules inside a balloon. Thus, it turns out that society/corporation behaves reflexively, but not rationally.
And here, by the way, the role of the “strong personality” comes to the forefront—some kind of completely crazy individual who, despite their craziness, managed to take a leadership position (not necessarily the highest one) and concentrate enough power in their hands so that their own fluctuations (whether constructive or destructive) do not get bogged down in the inertia of the society they lead or heavily influence, simply because they think outside of procedures and rules and see something that has never existed before, practically inventing = manifesting reason. When people say that reason is self-awareness, it should be understood that self-awareness is a consequence of a rational being’s ability to construct variations of the future, present, and past. To fantasize, to invent. To choose the best option for themselves, in their view, and to follow it on the path to the future. Not the immediate future, at the level of reflexes, but rather in perspective: tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, a year from now. Self-awareness is the fruit of fantasies like “what will happen if I’m not here” or “what is my role” or “if I do this, what will happen.”
By the way, it turns out that individuals who diligently apply their intellect to the society or organization they are part of are likely to be destructive to that society or organization. Yes, we know the winners (for sure) like Alexander the Great, and we know the losers (eventually) like Adolf Hitler. At the same time, the overwhelming majority of losers remain unknown to us. They experiment, fantasize, and make mistakes. They get fired, they are disposed of. They are removed for specific errors and simply because society, as an established entity, strives for self-preservation. Entities that do not seek self-preservation simply fade away. Thus, the specific reason for dismissal, exile, or execution may not be important. What matters is that the executors and generators of “sentences” act consciously or unconsciously in the interests of the society to which they belong.
Group behavior theory
Of course, what we observe in society can be explained, one way or another, through the lens of each individual’s selfish behavior. The question is what exactly the individual selfishly considers rational for themselves. Very often, rationality, from the perspective of an individual or group members, lies outside the realm of direct economic benefit, and instead falls within the sphere of rationalizing sacrifices to society, or in the realm of recognizing indirect benefits, or in the sphere of responding to real, imagined, or anticipated punishment.
In any case, upbringing—the things children hear around them as they grow up in society—shapes their value system and their understanding of rational behavior. Thus, society, from this perspective, develops a well-established resilience that also exists thanks to systems of natural selection. Societies in which such rational behavior, beneficial to the society itself, was not cultivated in the younger generation simply disintegrated and disappeared, leaving no descendants.
From the perspective of group action theory, one can also explain the irrationality of society and its inability to rationally create and manage public goods, despite the fact that societies essentially exist around the public goods they themselves have created.
This is how the rational and reasonable behavior of each driver in the flow of cars ultimately leads to the irrational behavior of the entire traffic flow in the city, which can only be described mathematically.
There is no real sense in creating or operating some new entity, an egregore of society. Everything is simpler and easier to explain at the “atomic” level. At the same time, introducing such an entity into circulation simply facilitates the understanding of processes at the macro level. It’s like introducing the term “hole” in the theory of electron-hole conductivity or the term “pressure” in the theory of ideal gases.
Conclusions
So, public interests: a) exist and are not ephemeral; b) are practically independent of the interests of the individuals that make up society; c) will either be fulfilled by the individual, or that individual will be rejected by society.
A small interesting addition: if an individual serves the interests of society, they must rationalize this for themselves. They will find the positive aspects. They will accept it as desirable for themselves, and they will find wisdom and logic in this decision for their own goals. This will happen for two reasons: a) in a person… sits. a system that ensures his happiness and rationalizes his behavior, and b) this is expected by society, meaning it recursively falls within the framework of those same “public interests.” There is no need to look far for examples. Examples are provided in the section below. It also explains in more detail what is meant by recursion.
Inseparability
So, every person is inseparable from the society they are in. By definition, we are not capable of observing a person outside of society. Even a hermit monk is a member of society as long as he maintains some form of contact with others.
Moreover, society dictates to individuals the views and principles they follow. Society shapes individual desires. A simple example: when society was in a phase of capital accumulation and a certain type of behavior was required, it was considered normal and virtuous to accumulate capital, grow it, and pass it on to future generations. Nowadays, such a person would be labeled a miser. The trend has now reversed. It is seen as reasonable and rational to live on credit. This allows one to obtain what would otherwise take years of saving. Society “orders” a consumer-oriented behavior. Actions that would have drawn public condemnation in the 19th century are now regarded as virtuous and normal: “If I don’t spend, then someone else won’t earn, and tomorrow I won’t earn either.” Almost all our desires and actions are dictated by society and are constantly evaluated by us in terms of their acceptability from a societal perspective.
As a living, truly vivid example — comment Assange on the actions of journalists. In response to a question about who is behind this discrediting campaign, Julian Assange stated: “I don’t want to say that there is a chain of directives going from Hillary Clinton to a journalist at The Guardian; that would be ridiculous, as it doesn’t happen in the real world, which is much more interesting and nuanced. The highest authority creates an environment from which individuals draw their ideas about what the power wants. There may be some direct instructions within organizations and groups, but each person or group acts in a way that maximizes their own interests. The pursuit of an ambitious career, fame, the creation and maintenance of alliances, the desire to do favors for friends, relatives, or party members, and attempts to turn fear into something that you weren’t asked for—all of this creates an environment.“That is, there is no need to ‘manage people.’ People themselves want peace and tranquility. They want to preserve the society they have chosen for themselves.”
People’s thoughts on the future of social organization are also quite interesting. Many tend to lean towards pessimistic forecasts, and they see Orwellian telescreens as the most likely outcome of the progress in information technology. This can be explained by the fact that they are once again rationalizing the “inevitable,” and the notion that this is inevitable leaves them with no doubts, as they find themselves in a society where descending information flows have taken over. tip welcomes these values and (also unconsciously) promotes them, and in the end, people rationalize their inevitability, despite факты. , speaking about the opposite.
The second line of defense for individuals against change also lies in rationalization. taboo. (kashrut among Jews, as an example or taboo on nudity), in proving their usefulness to themselves, despite their absurdity. For instance, currently, a typical taboo is the cult of “ privacy “, completely unthinkable just a couple of hundred years ago. At the same time, the key argument for rationalization sounds like “privacy = security.” However, when it comes to the security of, say, our homes, we hire a concierge in the entrance hall who starts to learn a lot about us that we wouldn’t want to share with strangers.”
Almost everyone I spoke to back in 2000 viewed the idea with skepticism. openness as a myth, a utopia, and an undesirable scenario for societal development. But now, openness is considered a virtue. We want to know everything about officials, we welcome and enshrine in law the disclosure of information by corporations, and we happily use social networks, and so on. This is, by the way, an example of the evolution of public consciousness.
The last illustration of the self-cementing of society that can be provided is— Stockholm syndrome The sympathy of victims for terrorists can be explained by the victim’s rationalization. A hostage is part of a society, and the price of leaving that society is death. Therefore, everything they do for that society, which is controlled by terrorists, gives them life. In this way, the terrorist becomes like a mother figure. Each victim, in relation to the established society (the group of hostages and terrorists), will rationalize their suffering—such as pain, humiliation, and discomfort—and perceive it positively, strangely enough. Don’t believe it? Think back to a teacher, coach, or sadistic superior in your life. And remember the quote from the movie “Kill the Dragon”: “Strict, but fair.” The victim will find justification for the punishment. Otherwise, life becomes more difficult.You can imprison anyone for ten years without explaining anything to them, and deep down, they will know why.» (F. Dürrenmatt)
How does it work?
Based on the above, society should be viewed as a separate entity, and it is impossible to judge society by looking at the individuals that make it up. Society, as an entity, has its own… public nature — a system of their values and aspirations. The people that make up society exchange something they sacrifice for something they receive or they think what they gain from membership in the society.
It is also worth noting. to understand that every person has a well-tuned system for ensuring happiness. A system that… rationalizing his actions and offering him explanations and arguments for them.
Now let’s take a look at how all of this works together. If society demands some concession from a person, that person makes this small concession, but at the same time, their built-in defense system shapes their motivation in such a way that they start to perceive this concession as their own correct and voluntary decision. They begin to take pleasure in having made that choice. Since they derive pleasure from it, they view their actions not as a concession on their part, but as a benefit from society—something they would be deprived of if they were not part of that society. And since they receive even more benefits from society,as ifwithout giving more in return than before, then he a) loves this society even more and b) is ready for bо.The biggest concessions that will be swallowed by him in exactly the same way as before and accepted as a good thing.
“It’s impossible to ‘open the eyes’ of such a person. The ‘…” sticking effect “A person cannot imagine that all the sacrifices they have made for the good of society are unjustified and bring them more harm than benefit. A person is inside the system. A circle.” closed off The system is not going haywire; rather, it is collapsing in on itself. We look at North Korea or the “Great White Brotherhood of Yusmalos” as good examples, which I promised to mention earlier.
On the other hand, if new ideas emerge in society that challenge the fairness of the existing social order, they must be rejected by society because society, as a separate entity, acts according to its instinct for self-preservation. For the existing society, any revolutionary ideas are deadly. A typical average member of any society at any time will be intolerant of ideas that could lead to a society that follows the current one.