A society needs rules

For several centuries a thread through Western thought has been a search for utopia. The perfect place of perfect people. In From Dawn to Decadence Jacques Barzun devoted a section called The Eutopians to this theme and those who wrote on it. A common link is most writers regarded some 'natural' state of people as closest to the perfect state, and implication bought out later by Rousseau, where every where we are in the social chains. Not perhaps fully a pure 'noble savage', but on that side of any ledger. All this effort is little more than the passionate longing of deluded men.

Two questions dominate and overpower any such discussion.  First, does a society need rules? And second, what exactly is freedom?

Let us deal first with science and the sometime suggested failure of social science to address issues of human ethics parallel to physical science addressing the many advances as it has. This apparent failure is of course nonsense, does any one seriously think Julius Caesar did not understand respect, compassion, honesty, integrity, discipline, and commitment. What can any science tell of those very human issues, I would suggest the Minoan civilization of 10,000 BC knew as much of these human frailties as we know today. Science is not needed to tell us how to act with dignity, truthfulness and respect, we already know that.

To live by transparent ethical principles positioning oneself on the basis of principle not immediate opportunity is hard and takes courage. The problem is not that we do not know what to do, but that we do not have the courage to do it, or we wait for the other person to do it first. Science cannot give us courage that is something we need find in ourselves.

If our 'natural state' is lack of courage to decline immediate opportunity if it breaches ethics to which we are committed, or lack of courage to manage our immediate internal states of feeling, putting them aside with reason and self-discipline - if this be the natural state of the 'noble savage' then what becomes of society if not a free for all serving few and they the most aggressive.

I can hear the riposte, what of ancient tribal societies that did not collapse due internal violence? The key is 'tribe', the closeness of association, this then the governing factor moderating the behavior of the individual. Our society is best considered a multitude of such tribes, with the internal working of each according to mores of the tribe, but that one tribe may have very different views to another.

Complexity and scale breeds local association, there is loss of association to the whole, we know of it, we understand it, we live in it and accept what it can provide, and within the common structure of law we are free within it.  We understand all of that, and most of us would act with good sense in relation to this whole, but there are major and very significant exceptions as testified by rates of violence, robbery, the seeking to force some particular point of view on others despite that the view is legal and legitimate (not the least was the liberalization of the financial rules recently and the move by many to take dramatic advantage of that opportunity). 

Does a complex society need rules, yes, we best all drive of left or right, the choice does not matter provided we all do it.

Does a society need rules, yes, we need moderate tendency of some to act in a violent manner when faced with actions of others they do not accept and do not agree with, despite the actions being legal.

Does a society need rules, yes, we need moderate the actions of those with power and privilege and limit their ability to use that power and privilege in ponsy schemes, or insider trading, or  manipulation of financial rules so that senior officials are able to secure extreme incomes at the expense of those keen to progress but with less vision and lower support and resources.

If a society needs rules, then we can deduce we need people to manage and moderate the rules according to social mores and expectations (legislature). We can deduce the need for some one to ensure adherence to the rules (police and ethical standards committees of professional associations). We can deduce the need for some way to assess whether rules were broken and to reprimand and punish appropriately (judiciary and again ethical standards committees of professional associations). Finally we of this society need someone to negotiate with those of other societies, such that both can benefit without war and bloodshed (executive of government).

Society needs rules, needs a whole heap of social processes to make rules, rule making and rule enforcement effective. (We tend to call this the political processes, but it goes rather deeper than the obvious politics of the state).

In modern plural and complex society the 'noble savage' may exist within their tribe but we have a mountain of evidence that proves (scientifically) that the noble savage does not exist as the common state of humanity in the greater social structure. The very idea is scientific nonsense, was even intellectual nonsense without the scientific data verifying it is nonsense. 

Social science has given us an exact answer,  we need courage to act according to transparent principles beyond ourselves and our immediate concerns/opportunities. At one time it was thought religion provided this ethical structure, but today we need get far beyond what religion is able to offer, we need find in ourselves commitment to build a utopia here now, one for our grandchildren to inherent so they will look back and say 'well done grandad and grandma'.

What then is freedom?

All societies need rules if it is to function at all, not just function effectively or efficiently (this is the key point those pursuing ideas of utopia completely missed). Living within rules demands discipline to adhere to the rules. Discipline then either comes from within or is applied from without.

Freedom is the privilege of being able to discipline oneself. The person truly free is chained to their ethics and principles which locates them within the rules, while acknowledging the right to legally challenge the rules.

Meanwhile the rules and their forced adherence will continue to be required even intensified until we learn to be truly free.