As I have termed societal justice “collective consensus” [i] on what moral values to uphold as being common determinants of mutual benefit or harm, the obvious objection raised is that it doesn’t appear that any country in existence has a single semblance of collective consensus; laws are always being debated, there is always internal strife. I agree. There do not seem to be very many societies today that have collective consensus on anything at all. The question we must ask ourselves is what causes this, and what are the effects of such societies?
There are two conflicting components that, I believe, cause a lack of collective consensus, and therefore a lack of societal justice. These two forces are freedom and societal dimensions.
Modern society is larger than ever, or rather, modern governments and the things we have termed “a society” are larger than ever. There are three hundred million people in the U.S. and a single, centralized government attempts to enact laws over every single one of them. A society this large cannot conceivably reach a collective consensus. There are too many people spread across too much land. This size creates infinite variability; moral thought is dependent largely on the culture in which one is raised, and with so many different cultures within a single society, moral values will inevitably differ from person to person.
Surely, American society still functions, though. As to how well it functions, well that is a matter of debate (one that I’d love to have). It may be asked, naturally, why it is that the society still maintains itself, if it does not possess the mechanism for survival that is justice. Well in response to the self-posed query, I would say that a society doesn’t necessarily need to be just in order to preserve itself, but that a just society does a better job of preserving itself than an unjust one. However, I would feel bad if I were to merely claim that modern society is unjust and leave it at that. I am not one to criticize without attempting to offer pragmatic solutions. In order to explain my solutions, though, I must first explain how the second component, freedom, fits into my theory.
With all the differences in moral outlooks, our society is, on some level, disorganized as it is filled with disagreements on the most important and pertinent issues our society faces. Why is this? Well, put simply, it is because people have the freedom to disagree. There is room for disorder. If a society of this size is to be just, everyone must be made to conform to a single set of moral values that are upheld as the common determinants of the benefit or harm of social decisions. Freedom and justice are inversely related in a large society; if freedom is desired, then justice is lost and if justice is desired then the freedom to have differing views of morality must be lost.
This brings me back to my solutions and, not surprisingly, to Socrates. Though I said that, in a large society, people “must be made to conform to a single set of moral values” I do not mean that these people should have certain ideologies forced upon them; much worse, in fact. I mean that an individual’s ability to disagree with those moral values must be destroyed. If the ability to have opposing moral views exists, then disagreement is possible, as is the likelihood of revolution and civil unrest, and therefore societal instability; as society is our primary means of survival, unstable society is a threat to our existences. Socrates’ myth is the best method of controlling people’s ability to have differing views on morality. Their individual thought processes must be morphed into unanimous conformity, by whatever means we have available. The perfect example of this is the dystopian/utopian novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. In this novel the people of the world are not only manufactured by the State, but are also conditioned throughout the course of their lives into a conformed culture and, therefore, a particular set of moralistic views.
On the opposite side of the freedom-societal dimensions spectrum the solution is, I believe, much more enjoyable. A society with freedom as well as justice is much less complex to obtain. The size of the society must be made small enough that consensus is easily and readily obtained on an entirely societal scale and in individuals' interactions with one another.
My third and final solution is complex in its simplicity. This solution is not so much a construction of societal organization as much as it is a deconstruction. My proposal is this: that we forget about justice entirely. Indeed, that we do not consciously consider society and its organization, and that we no longer consciously create organization or structure within society, instead allowing it to become more natural and simplistic. In all of our haste to escape death we have grown shortsighted. We have built huge buildings, towns and cities, so as to ensure knowledge of what is in our environment. We seek to control every aspect of our lives in order to be as sure as we can that we will not die. At the core of every animal is the drive to live. It is the reason for our every behavior, our every action. However, humanity has become so caught up in the avoidance of death that we have forgotten to accept the inevitable: we will die. We have grown more and more afraid of death, and thus our adaptations for survival have grown larger and grander. Our adaptations are killing us; not individually, but as a species. We reproduce endlessly, bringing billions and billions of new members of our species into the world so as to ensure huge society, and therefore our survival. But, in order to sustain these people, we are pillaging the Earth ruthlessly and without foresight. The Earth’s resources are our resources, and we can only survive insofar as we have access to them. Amidst our avoidance and fear of death, we are destroying these resources (every one imaginable) and thus are leading, inevitably, to our own extinction.
So, my final solution is to take a step backwards and give slack to our taught focus on society, become more utilitarian and simplistic and accept death. In fact, welcome it when it arrives. We do not need rigid rules, and strict structure. All we need is our brief, transient lives, and whatever comes after is no cause for alarm.
To anybody who reads this, I hope that you never read it again. I hope that you focus on your immediate existence and enjoy it because it is beautiful and inexplicable. It is this mindset that can deconstruct our destructive organization. Breathe deeply, stay healthy, and enjoy the fluctuations of life.
:)
[i] The term “collective consensus” seems to imply a conscious mutual agreement, but I would not limit the scope of the term to something that simple. There are plenty of unconscious agreements made within each culture; people behave certain ways because they have seen others behave that way. In fact, it seems to me that the very nature of culture is to be an unconscious set of rules.
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