If the Social Contract Continues to be Ignored by the Powers-That-be, Society Cannot Endure.

 

"Man is a moral being only because he lives in society. Let all social life disappear, and morality will disappear with it." Emile Durkheim

As sociological pioneers go, Emile Durkheim is one of my favorites.  His work centered on the importance of family, religion and social bonds.  He saw the correlation between social pathologizes and a lack of connection to important institutions that gave life meaning. He also stressed the importance of society working through cooperation, similar to the social contract spoken of by Locke and Rousseau. The reason I make reference to Durkheim you ask? Well, without a sense of social connection a society cannot survive. The importance of this metaphysical agreement between individuals, families, networks, and eventually between people and government cannot be ignored, but apparently the powers-that-be in today's western societies have decided they no longer need to follow this contract between equals because, in their minds, power is to be yielded and force brings cooperation.  Again, a society such as that cannot stand.

One issue that illustrates this perfectly is the government response to Corona the past year and a half.  On one extreme you had Sweden, which offered, for the most part, suggestions to its population and barely restricted freedoms. They urged people to avoid crowding, but did so more as a concerned parent might suggest a course of action to a young adult.  Then on the other end you had nations such as Canada, Australia and some blue states in the USA that took a more authoritarian approach, a boot on the face, to borrow a phrase from Orwell, the author of "1984." And beyond the pros and cons of each approach one thing is certain, it contributed to more fragmentation of society than one can find anywhere in the modern era. 

A video I produced before Corona. Thins have only become worse. Check out my video and please subscribe to my YouTube channel:

To be clear, the social contract discussed implies consent of the governed, and respect for protest, but we can see how government mandates from the US executive branch completely throw that out the window.  You are told to comply or be fired from work, or you are threatened that without compliance you will have lock downs. And it is not out-of-the-question that more Draconian measures are just around the corner.  As for nations such as Australia, we see the emergence of a techno-medical form of authoritarian state not even dreamed of in "1984." Again, is that the future for the United States?

And with threats and intimidation you get collaborators, i.e. Hollywood, submission, i.e. many religious institutions, and refusal to comply. The hatred of the collaborators is apparent when many say that vaccinated people should be denied any and all medical treatment, and this foments contempt towards these people by those who, for one reason or another, refuse to take the injection. And as it appears the virus is going nowhere the frustrations will grow within all groups, all blaming the other. And as Sigmund Freud noted in "Civilization and its Discontents" once there is a feeling of us v. them then it evolves, at some point, into violence, or a complete disregard of the well-being of the "others."

And make no mistake about it, even very close ties can break once people are convinced you are "the enemy." We are already seeing hatreds grow within congregations based solely on if one wears a mask or not, or has had the shot.  Imagine if this disease remains, and the powers-that-be intensify their projection of blame onto those who fail to conform.  You think you will be able to trust what will turn into former friends? Think they won't turn you in for owning guns, or having food storage, if the government makes such activities illegal, once the social order collapses?  

As Durkheim notes, morality ceases to exist when the society that maintained it ceases to exist.  And in an v. them eventuality, those in power can justify anything from firing people from their jobs or denying them medical care, to hauling them off to detention camps, or worse. Once needs only to look at 20th Century events in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, the Balkans, Rwanda, Cambodia...etc. to see how it played out, and there is no reason to believe it cannot happen in the USA, Australia or elsewhere. 

Interested in a dystopian novel set in the days of Noah?  Check it out:

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