Why Live In Society? And Who Is Worthy Of It?

[RCSaunders]

Most human beings choose to live in some kind of social relationship with other human beings. This observation is mistakenly attributed to some supposed evolutionary or inherited natural attribute of human beings, called the, "social nature," or, "social instinct." Nothing causes human beings to do or be anything, because they must choose all their behavior. [See the chapter, "The Moral Nature."]

Human Beings Are Not Social Animals

From the, "Unique Human Nature" section of "The Moral Nature" chapter:

"How a human being must live is determined by human nature. Except for human beings, every creature behaves exactly as their nature requires because its nature also determines that behavior.

The unique nature of human beings does not provide them with any specific predetermine behavior."

Human beings are not predators, grazing animals, pack animals, herd animals, colony animals, or social animals. Human beings are rational volitional animals and are required by their nature to choose what kind of beings they are going to be and how they will live.

The reason most human beings choose to live in societies and socially interact with other human beings is because they value those relationships.

The Advantages Of Society

A society makes it possible for individual human beings to have and achieve many things that would be impossible if every individual had to depend entirely on their own effort and ability. The two primary advantages of society are:

1. The ability to accumulate and transmit knowledge. Every individual gains an incalculable value from knowledge learned and discovered by others and passed on from generation to generation. A society makes available to every individual an almost unlimited amount of knowledge one could never gain by their own discovery.

2. Specialization and trade. The division of labor enables individuals to have more than any individual could possibly have and enjoy if they were required to produce everything themselves. A society enables individuals to efficiently produce specific products or services which they can trade for the products and services of others, making available to every individual an endless supply of goods and services.

The advantages of the society of others is much more than these, however.

The Value Of Human Relationships

Why would one be interested in others at all? There is probably no single answer to why one would be interested in others because that interest depends on the particular relationship one has with others. Nevertheless, there are some general reasons others are important to us.

The first is the fact that other human beings are the only other creatures on this planet that have the same kind of nature each of us has. All human beings have the same basic physical requirements, and all have the same psychological requirements, they all must learn, think, make choices, and, live their lives in the best way they can to be successful and happy in this world.

Though the variety is endless, we all have similar experiences, growing up, learning, becoming adults and becoming responsible for ourselves, choosing what we want to do with our lives, which for most of us means what we will do for work, finding love, raising families, and enjoying our recreations. While our objectives and aspirations will be vastly different, they are all human objectives and aspirations.

The fact that all decent human beings are also productive, producing either products or services that are important to our lives is the reason all human beings are a real value to each other. Being the same kind of beings, the advantage of trading with one another and voluntarily cooperating with others in things from which all participants profit is obvious.

While the entire world of nature is interesting and a source of endless learning and experience, it is the world created and produced by human beings that is of real importance to us, because it is a world only human beings could make.

The world of science and technology which makes every material aspect of human society, from the clothes we wear to the buildings we live and work in to the vehicles that transport us anywhere in the world; the world of business and commerce where all the things humans produce are made available to us, and where we work our efforts are rewarded; the world of culture from language to the arts is a strictly human world; the world of literature that makes available to us all the record of human history and the glories of human imagination and most of all the incredible variety of human creation.

Only human beings can share and understand each others' thoughts, only human beings can accumulate knowledge and pass it along to future generations, only human beings can appreciate each others' ambitions and admire each others' accomplishments. Only human beings can make long-term plans and work together to fulfill them. Only human beings can make friendships based on the values we find in each other. Only human beings can love each other for what they are and are capable of the highest of human relations, romantic love.

Only human beings can provide the kind of endless variety of culture and life styles that provide endless sources of interest and discovery from methods of production to cuisines, from clothing styles to music. The unique experience made possible by interactions with others of endless variety of culture, knowledge, skills, and interests provides endless interest and opportunity to enrich us.

Positive And Negative Human Relationships

The advantages of society are, however, only potential, not guaranteed. The history of the world is sadly a history of human interactions dominated by cruelty and oppression. While human beings can obviously be of great value to one another, they are also capable of being great threats to one another. Social relationships are not automatically benevolent, and many are disastrously malevolent.

Whether or not social relationships are benevolent or malevolent is determined by the kinds of individuals in those relationships.

Negative Human Relationships

Positive human relationships are only possible between individuals who are not a threat or danger to one another and have something of value to offer one another. There is no advantage to any social relationship with others who would use force to harm us or interfere in our lives. Social relationships in which one's own life is endangered or compromised by the intent or actions of others are negative social relationships. They are relationships we would be better off without.

There is no advantage to a relationship with those who produce nothing of value and take, by threat or force, what others have produced. There is no advantage to a relationship with others who threaten to force us to do what they like against our will. There is no advantage to any relationship with others who have nothing of value to offer and only want to use us for their own gratification.

Positive Human Relationships

In any society, it is only the independent productive individuals who are capable of positive social relationships and deserve the benefits of society because they are the only individuals in any society who are never a threat to others and have anything of value to offer others in that society. All other members of a society are, at some level, a threat to others' lives and freedom and have nothing of positive value to offer.

Only independent individuals contribute positive value to any society by 1. producing something of value to trade with others who produce, 2. in whatever modest or exceptional way, advance knowledge by teaching others skills they have developed to teaching mankind how to do something never done before (think Edison and the Wright brothers), 3. by contributing their own unique abilities and ideas, because they think for themselves, 4. by their own style of living and being, not copied from others, but chosen for their own reasons, and 5. by being the kind of self-made individuals others can appreciate and love.

Only independent individuals are benevolent in all their relationships with others, because they neither seek or desire any relationships others do not freely choose to be a part of. Only independent individuals make no demands of others or ever interfere in how others choose to live their lives. Only independent individuals are capable of enjoying the success of others knowing that other's success can only be a benefit to themselves.

[Walker]

Paradoxically, every action of a social person, or one living in society, is self-serving.

[RCSaunders]

Paradoxically, every action of a social person, or one living in society, is self-serving.

Except to those who swallow the altruist lie, where's the paradox? The only benefit one can possibly be to anyone else is determined by how well the achieve making thmeselves the best they can be. One who is of no value to themselves is certainly not going be of value to anyone else.

What else should anyone's actions serve if not their own life and values?

[Walker]

Paradoxically, every action of a social person, or one living in society, is self-serving.

... where's the paradox?

The paradox is that social actions are for the individual. Society benefits as a natural consequence.

Everything that an individual does in a society (two or more) is self-serving to the individual (one). The Salvation Army volunteer rings the bell for the self-serving satisfaction of identity reinforcement that quietly proclaims, “Yes, I am selfless.”

Combine this with the no pain, no gain mentality (mask wearing) and it becomes obvious that motivation isn’t always caused by the rational, good choice but rather to reinforce identity. Ringing the bell at 10-below makes one really selfless, and individually satisfied.

It's akin to self-flogging Filipinos at Easter, although decidedly less dramatic ... and likely less transforming. And how about those Fuji fire-walkers. If that doesn't reinforce an identity, it discovers a new one.

Other individuals with other self-concepts also find satisfaction in identity reinforcement.

If a retailer finds satisfaction in cheating customers one way or another, natural selection will eliminate him, although natural selection can be, and often is, disrupted by those who self-identify as elites (e.g: media monopolies, crony capitalism, unelected deep staters).

[RCSaunders]

Paradoxically, every action of a social person, or one living in society, is self-serving.

... where's the paradox?

The paradox is that social actions are for the individual. Society benefits as a natural consequence.

Everything that an individual does in a society (two or more) is self-serving to the individual (one). The Salvation Army volunteer rings the bell for the self-serving satisfaction of identity reinforcement that quietly proclaims, “Yes, I am selfless.”

Combine this with the no pain, no gain mentality (mask wearing) and it becomes obvious that motivation isn’t always caused by the rational, good choice but rather to reinforce identity. Ringing the bell at 10-below makes one really selfless, and individually satisfied.

It's akin to self-flogging Filipinos at Easter, although decidedly less dramatic ... and likely less transforming. And how about those Fuji fire-walkers. If that doesn't reinforce an identity, it discovers a new one.

Other individuals with other self-concepts also find satisfaction in identity reinforcement.

If a retailer finds satisfaction in cheating customers one way or another, natural selection will eliminate him, although natural selection can be, and often is, disrupted by those who self-identify as elites (e.g: media monopolies, crony capitalism, unelected deep staters).

I still don't see any irony. You've described some of the ways human beings find to live self-destructive pointless lives (but hardly most of them) which are all irrelevent to independent individualists. Life and meaning only pertain to individuals, not societies.

Perhaps I'm missing some point your making. Just put it down to my obtuseness.

[Impenitent]

the basic society is the family...

-Imp

[popeye1945]

Those who are worthy of society are those who keep the social contract, those who do not are imprisoned penalised or ostracised.

[RCSaunders]

Those who are worthy of society are those who keep the social contract, those who do not are imprisoned penalised or ostracised.

Nice! You'd love a police state. That's not society, it's a prison camp.

[RCSaunders]

the basic society is the family...

-Imp

Like the Manson Family.

[popeye1945]

Those who are worthy of society are those who keep the social contract, those who do not are imprisoned penalised or ostracised.

Nice! You'd love a police state. That's not society, it's a prison camp.

RC,
I am just describing the society you presently live in. If you insist on breaking the social contract represented by the mores and laws of a given society you will be punished in some way. You cannot have a society that has no standards to its social contract with its citizens.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

If humans aren't 'social animals' then why do they become psychotic when deprived of all human contact? Why are you so obsessed with this 'I am an island' crap? Yes, a lot of people prefer their own company, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's vastly different from being deprived of all contact. Why did you bother getting married and having children? You are just doing that typcically moronic American thing of confusing 'social' with 'communism'; making EVERYTHING about 'freedom' versus 'communism'. Idiot.

[RCSaunders]

Those who are worthy of society are those who keep the social contract, those who do not are imprisoned penalised or ostracised.

Nice! You'd love a police state. That's not society, it's a prison camp.

RC,
I am just describing the society you presently live in. If you insist on breaking the social contract represented by the mores and laws of a given society you will be punished in some way. You cannot have a society that has no standards to its social contract with its citizens.

I have never, "obeyed," any law. I do not need any man-made laws to tell me not to steal, or kill, or harm anyone, or in any other way how to live my life. I am only concerned with doing what reality and my own nature require me to do to be the best human I can be, and it is that I do no matter what any man-made laws say.

In Nazi Germany good law-abiding citizens obeyed the law that required them to turn in their Jewish neighbors to be hauled of to concentration camps. When laws are evil (which most of them are) it is evil to obey them.

You really think rational individuals cannot live together without conflict if there is not some agencey of force making them live right? If that is kind of people a society consists of it, one would be better without it.

Out of curiosity. If there were no laws against theft, assault, murder, and vandalism would begin stealing, murdering people, assaulting them, and damaging their property? Could you find no way to have benevolent relationships with others on a totally voluntary bases? Why are you so certain no one else is as virtuous as your are, that they need to be controlled by force? If society is so rotten it needs to be controled by force, where are you going to get the viruous people to make and enforce the laws? Won't it always end up with vilest and most crooked of a society's members in the seats of political authority, just as it is now?

[RCSaunders]

If humans aren't 'social animals' then why do they become psychotic when deprived of all human contact?

First of all, that's not true. Some probably do become psychotic in forced solitutude. Some become psychotic when deprived of their drugs, or alcohol, or anything else they become dependent on. But many individual intentionally choose solitude and live their entire lives, except when forced otherwise with no human contact. Every individual is different. There is no one way that is right for all human beings to live.

Why are you so obsessed with this 'I am an island' crap? Yes, a lot of people prefer their own company, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's vastly different from being deprived of all contact. Why did you bother getting married and having children? You are just doing that typcically moronic American thing of confusing 'social' with 'communism'; making EVERYTHING about 'freedom' versus 'communism'. Idiot.

You either have a reading comprehension problem or you didn't read the article. I personally adore the company of others and find immense pleasure in dealing with them socially at every level, from the most casual to business. The whole point of the article is to describe the kind of person one must be to have positive relationships with others that are truly benevolent all involved.

But even if I were advocating the nonsense you described, why would you care? It could not possibly harm anyone else. Does it bother you that someone is capable of having their own identity and meaning in their life without having to be a member of some collective category of human beings?

[vegetariantaxidermy]

If humans aren't 'social animals' then why do they become psychotic when deprived of all human contact?

First of all, that's not true. Some probably do become psychotic in forced solitutude. Some become psychotic when deprived of their drugs, or alcohol, or anything else they become dependent on. But many individual intentionally choose solitude and live their entire lives, except when forced otherwise with no human contact. Every individual is different. There is no one way that is right for all human beings to live.

Why are you so obsessed with this 'I am an island' crap? Yes, a lot of people prefer their own company, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's vastly different from being deprived of all contact. Why did you bother getting married and having children? You are just doing that typcically moronic American thing of confusing 'social' with 'communism'; making EVERYTHING about 'freedom' versus 'communism'. Idiot.

You either have a reading comprehension problem or you didn't read the article. I personally adore the company of others and find immense pleasure in dealing with them socially at every level, from the most casual to business. The whole point of the article is to describe the kind of person one must be to have positive relationships with others that are truly benevolent all involved.

But even if I were advocating the nonsense you described, why would you care? It could not possibly harm anyone else. Does it bother you that someone is capable of having their own identity and meaning in their life without having to be a member of some collective category of human beings?

When they are hypocrites, yes it does bother me. And you are a hypocrite.

[RCSaunders]

If humans aren't 'social animals' then why do they become psychotic when deprived of all human contact?

First of all, that's not true. Some probably do become psychotic in forced solitutude. Some become psychotic when deprived of their drugs, or alcohol, or anything else they become dependent on. But many individual intentionally choose solitude and live their entire lives, except when forced otherwise with no human contact. Every individual is different. There is no one way that is right for all human beings to live.

Why are you so obsessed with this 'I am an island' crap? Yes, a lot of people prefer their own company, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's vastly different from being deprived of all contact. Why did you bother getting married and having children? You are just doing that typcically moronic American thing of confusing 'social' with 'communism'; making EVERYTHING about 'freedom' versus 'communism'. Idiot.

You either have a reading comprehension problem or you didn't read the article. I personally adore the company of others and find immense pleasure in dealing with them socially at every level, from the most casual to business. The whole point of the article is to describe the kind of person one must be to have positive relationships with others that are truly benevolent to all involved.

But even if I were advocating the nonsense you described, why would you care? It could not possibly harm anyone else. Does it bother you that someone is capable of having their own identity and meaning in their life without having to be a member of some collective category of human beings?

When they are hypocrite, yes it does bother me. And you are a hypocrite.

Well, thanks for your opinion. Hope you feel better.