What would a "better" society look like?

[civver_764]

I think most of us agree that society has a lot of problems, even if we don't agree on what those problems are. That's to be expected, it's what we as humans like to do, complain about stuff. I don't think society can be pointed to as the root cause of all problems like we tend to do sometimes, but I think there is definitely value in changing it that would result in more happiness for most people.

So what would you like to see changed about our current society? Do we all want fundamentally the same thing for our world? Let's find out.

Here are my views on the matter:

First of all, there'd be an absence of inequality of power. That means that no one would have power over somebody else. No governments, no organized religions, no sexism, no racism, no borders, no monetary system, and certainly no private ownership.

That'd be the most important factor I'd say. The second most important would be an absence of individualism. That word can have a lot of definitions, some of which I'd be in favor of, so what I mean here is that people would no longer have a sense of being distinct from the rest of society. Sure people would still have individual characteristics and interpretations of subjective phenomena(ie. matters of "personal taste") and individual interests in different subjects, but people wouldn't really view their interests as distinct from the interests of society in general. Kind of like the idea of class consciousness in leftist politics(probably an important first step), but much more universal. No more "me vs. them".

A third factor would be a major drive towards the elimination of human labor. Developing technology to automate tasks currently carried out by humans. I don't think anybody really disagrees with this so I won't bother explaining more.

And there'd be a much greater degree of "openness". There'd be no more embarassment in regards to our bodies, for instance. Clothing would be for the purpose of survival, not for concealment. People would be more in tune with their true nature and less afraid of being judged by others for their actions. In turn people would judge others less for their actions. Having an argument for the purpose of "winning" or "proving the other person wrong" would seem insane. Ideas would be more freely shared and accepted. Discussion would be merely for the education of all parties. I could go on and on but I think you probably get the point.

And yes, I do think all of this is 100% possible. Humanity just needs to evolve a bit more and realize its oneness. I can certainly feel this trend in myself(and its been speeding up) and I think I definitely see it in others.

I'm interested to see what everyone else thinks would be good measures for a "better" society. And if you disagree with my views(which I'm sure some of you do), I'd be interested to here why. I'm not too interested in the practical application of these ideals(well I am obviously, but not for the purposes of this thread), I just want to see if we all share some basic ideals.

 

[Borachio]

I think I disagree on two major points.

1) Absence of individualism:

It depends what you mean, of course. Perhaps you mean absence of egoism, in which case I'd agree. But society should be the framework enabling the individual to fully realize his own potential. And we are all very different.

2) Elimination of human labour:

Physical and Mental labour are what gives our lives meaning, it seems to me. Of course, labour which is meaningless, and meaninglessly hazardous should go. For example, mind-numbing bureaucracy and shovelling excrement. But other than those sort of things, people do actually like to work, generally speaking.

edit: Basically, I'd go with William Morris's News from Nowhere as a vision of utopia. It looks like anarcho-syndicalism to me.

 

[Camikaze]

More glass, curves and Yves Klein Blue.

I'm not sure I agree that the elimination of human labour would make for a better society. Not doing anything would make you feel quite purposeless, and would probably get boring after a while, too. Also, are you just referring to manual labour? Because thinking is a pretty important thing for humans.

 

[civver_764]

1) Absence of individualism:

It depends what you mean, of course. Perhaps you mean absence of egoism, in which case I'd agree. But society should be the framework enabling the individual to fully realize his own potential. And we are all very different.

2) Elimination of human labour:

Physical and Mental labour are what gives our lives meaning, it seems to me. Of course, labour which is meaningless, and meaninglessly hazardous should go. For example, mind-numbing bureaucracy and shovelling excrement. But other than those sort of things, people do actually like to work, generally speaking.

1) I'm not sure what you mean with "realize his own potential."

2) I guess I was a little vague. By labor I don't mean doing stuff in general, and I think its pretty clear that people will continue to do things that they enjoy, regardless of the necessity. I guess a better way to describe what I mean is an absence of the necessity of human labor, and thus a greater amount of freedom.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Most immediately an understanding that worship of money is a false god.

The development of a sense of duty including:

(a) responsibility for one's own actions
(b) contributing to society
(c) moderating one's demands
(d) helping those less fortunate than one self
(e) forgiving the trespasses of others.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

A lack of economic and social inequality would be rather nice. I still don't know about power inequality, since I haven't been shown an efficient model of democratic administration for extremely large projects yet. At least I can grasp how the first two could be achieved.

 

[Borachio]

1) I'm not sure what you mean with "realize his own potential."

Yup. I'm being very vague too. It's just a trite phrase, after all, I suppose.

How about being able to fully develop one's natural talents?

2) I guess I was a little vague. By labor I don't mean doing stuff in general, and I think its pretty clear that people will continue to do things that they enjoy, regardless of the necessity. I guess a better way to describe what I mean is an absence of the necessity of human labor, and thus a greater amount of freedom.

I like to distinguish between jobs (which people do from necessity to earn money) and work, which they would do anyway, given the chance.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

More glass, curves and Yves Klein Blue.

I'm not sure I agree that the elimination of human labour would make for a better society. Not doing anything would make you feel quite purposeless, and would probably get boring after a while, too. Also, are you just referring to manual labour? Because thinking is a pretty important thing for humans.

It is the one huge disagreement I have with the OP.

Khrushchev said it best: "Labor alone ennobles the spirit of man and provides him all the necessities of life."

I also disagree, however, with the premise that we should not argue, and that all ideas should be readily accepted. Some people, and some ideas, are just plain stupid, and others seem bright but are in fact covering their stupidness with a veneer of usefulness. Such things and people must, by necessity, be called out. In addition, it is through discussion and argument that we realize other peoples' points of view, and it's how we make ideas stronger. That's where critical thinking comes from, our most important asset as humans. What purpose abandoning our ability to provide for ourselves, and our ability to think critically for ourselves, holds, is beyond me. Retaining both is quite possible whilst still evolving towards a society of cooperation and mutuality.

 

[Mr. Dictator]

Possible problem with no-work:

Your brains reward system gets shot.

 

[Synobun]

So what would you like to see changed about our current society? Do we all want fundamentally the same thing for our world? Let's find out.

1) Individualized education, using Holland, Belgium, and Germany as a preliminary foundation.

2) Widened education. Teach people valuable life skills as well as academics.

3) Pursuit of knowledge and happiness, not profit and power.

4) Mind your own damn business unless it's a matter of national security.

I could go on, but those four would make the world pretty great.

 

[luiz]

3) Pursuit of knowledge and happiness, not profit and power.

4) Mind your own damn business unless it's a matter of national .

What if someone wants to pursue profits and power instead of happiness and knowledge? Would you mind your own business and let him?

Regarding the OP, I obviously would not want to abolish individualism. A society like the one he described looks like a nightmare to me.

Just to be clear: individualism is not the same as egoism. It's possible to be an altruistic individualist, and it's possible to be a selfish collectivist. I blame Plato on all the confusion regarding this topic, since in the Republic he equated individualism with selfishness on purpose, since individualism was the enemy of his totalitarian project.

 

[Goodfella]

That'd be the most important factor I'd say. The second most important would be an absence of individualism. That word can have a lot of definitions, some of which I'd be in favor of, so what I mean here is that people would no longer have a sense of being distinct from the rest of society. Sure people would still have individual characteristics and interpretations of subjective phenomena(ie. matters of "personal taste") and individual interests in different subjects, but people wouldn't really view their interests as distinct from the interests of society in general. Kind of like the idea of class consciousness in leftist politics(probably an important first step), but much more universal. No more "me vs. them".

As pleasant as it sounds, it's just not practical. Humans are selfish. And what's the use of discussing how society can be improved if all the improvements are impractical and unrealistic? With that said, and I'm sure you've heard this before, people don't work for free and no one invents things for the good of society. So I'm not sure what's so bad about selfishness anyway.

 

[Synobun]

What if someone wants to pursue profits and power instead of happiness and knowledge? Would you mind your own business and let him?

Sure. I never claimed we should make it illegal for typical Wall Street cats to exist, just that maybe we should encourage children to pursue more scientific fields or interests, or things that don't involve being a deceptive suit-worn corpse. Entirely up to the person of what they want to do, but the thread is asking how you think a better society would be like.

 

[civver_764]

A lack of economic and social inequality would be rather nice. I still don't know about power inequality, since I haven't been shown an efficient model of democratic administration for extremely large projects yet. At least I can grasp how the first two could be achieved.

That sort of thing will only come about when humans are ready. And it won't be brought about by some change in policy or some "liberation" by a socialist state, it will be brought about by the population at large. As they work in solidarity with one another and spend time fighting against the powers that be they'll also learn to live and structure their communities around those same principals. We've seen lots of historical trends so far, but the ideology is still pretty new. I think the most recent example would be Occupy Wall St. Not perfect, but a very encouraging sign.

How about being able to fully develop one's natural talents?

Unless their talent is violence related, that probably wouldn't conflict with society. To be clear: People will still be unique, with their unique hobbies and skills and tastes in art and so on, probably even more so than today. But their main goal in life, for example, wouldn't be "to make as much money as possible" it would "to see the advancement of human society to the highest possible level." You see what I'm getting at?

I also disagree, however, with the premise that we should not argue, and that all ideas should be readily accepted. Some people, and some ideas, are just plain stupid, and others seem bright but are in fact covering their stupidness with a veneer of usefulness. Such things and people must, by necessity, be called out. In addition, it is through discussion and argument that we realize other peoples' points of view, and it's how we make ideas stronger. That's where critical thinking comes from, our most important asset as humans. What purpose abandoning our ability to provide for ourselves, and our ability to think critically for ourselves, holds, is beyond me. Retaining both is quite possible whilst still evolving towards a society of cooperation and mutuality.

Heh, that's not quite what I meant. Although seeing as how I typed "ideas accepted" I can see what you're saying. I meant that the ideas would be accepted for consideration. People wouldn't be focused on having some mainstream set of ideas. People also would not self-identify with these positions, nor would they identify "stupid ideas" with so-called "stupid people."

That's just a small part of the "openness" that I was talking about, and really just an example. In general what I meant was an absence of social pressure(come to think of it, that's exactly how I should have phrased it. oh well).

Regarding the OP, I obviously would not want to abolish individualism. A society like the one he described looks like a nightmare to me.

I'm not sure what you mean by individualism and what I meant by individualism are the same thing(I'm not a totalitarian, obviously). Could explain more?

As pleasant as it sounds, it's just not practical. Humans are selfish. And what's the use of discussing how society can be improved if all the improvements are impractical and unrealistic? With that said, and I'm sure you've heard this before, people don't work for free and no one invents things for the good of society. So I'm not sure what's so bad about selfishness anyway.

Some humans are selfish about some things some times. And it's less and less over time. I think there's a worldwide shift in consciousness taking place that will make these ideas even more likely in the next few years.

But the use would just be to see if we all want the same things for people. Some people oppose communism on practical grounds, but others actually think it wouldn't be better even if implemented. The second one is what I'm interested in.

As for the rest, consider that most people exist in economic bondage. All of the resources and means of production are controlled by wealthy and powerful individuals. People do not have access to these resources unless they do work and help enrich those that are already several times richer than themselves. So it's easy to see how people expect compensation for their work with this in mind.

Remove the private control factor and fear of starvation, homelessness, etc. is all eliminated. Humans are finally emancipated and can truly do what they want to do. And what many, many people want to do is help others. Others still would develop technology because they are interested in the related field(I don't think we're going to argue here that Einstein or Hawking are only in it for the money) and would voluntarily do work towards the development of it. I think if people were freer they'd be happier, and I think if they were happier they would be more productive. So this model seems like a clear improvement.

 

[Joecoolyo]

A society in which everyone has the chance to succeed, i.e. a level playing field.

And that's it for me. That can be accomplished in our current system with a possibly larger, and more efficient welfare state (though with a lot more intricacies than "throw money at people and hope for the best").

I tend not to believe in utopian dreams like what's been proposed in the OP, they're too idealistic for their own good and tend to hinge on the idea that "if only everyone believed in the same thing, and acted the same way, society would be a better place". Which either implies a society of forced conformity or a lack of understanding of human diversity.

 

[civver_764]

I tend not to believe in utopian dreams like what's been proposed in the OP, they're too idealistic for their own good and tend to hinge on the idea that "if only everyone believed in the same thing, and acted the same way, society would be a better place". Which either implies either a forced conformity or a lack of understanding of the diversity of humanity.

We already expect people to follow some of the same principles, I'm just changing/adding to those principles. For example we already expect people to view killing as immoral(to a certain degree...), to tolerate other people's freedom of thought, to "obey the law", etc.

 

[Borachio]

I think you're way too optimistic altogether, Mr Civver. But that's to your credit.

 

[civver_764]

The trend of society for a long time now has been freer people and less inequality. I'm not being optimistic so much as pointing to where the trend is going to head.

 

[Borachio]

Well, on inequality I think there's been some fairly significant swings in the last 20-30 years towards greater inequality. But that might only be temporary. As for being freer - you mean politically and globally? Because in terms of working hours, we're becoming steadily less free, it seems to me.


edit: actually, I feel like deleting this now. Looks like gibberish to me. But I dare not do it, else some people will shout at me. (I think I'll have to take to writing stuff down and waiting for 24 hours before posting anything in future.)

 

[Hehehe]

First of all, there'd be an absence of inequality of power. That means that no one would have power over somebody else. No governments, no organized religions, no sexism, no racism, no borders, no monetary system, and certainly no private ownership.

So you mean some sort of anarchy? Some people will always have power over others. It may be due to being physically stronger, having more friends to help out or whatever. But there will always be an inequality of power. A just government is a mean to keep that power in check.