{"id":2915,"date":"2010-08-29T20:31:13","date_gmt":"2010-08-29T20:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bhagwad.com\/blog\/?p=2888"},"modified":"2010-09-11T04:49:31","modified_gmt":"2010-09-10T23:19:31","slug":"society-is-a-big-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bhagwad.com\/blog\/2010\/rights-and-freedoms\/society-is-a-big-lie.html\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cSociety\u201d is a big lie"},"content":{"rendered":"

How often have you been put on the defensive by someone claiming that something is “harmful to Society?” How many times have you been tricked into arguing that something isn’t going to “destroy Marriage?” If you’re like me, you’ve heard such statements often enough. Usually from the moral police in response to some behavior they personally disapprove of.<\/p>\n

I’m sick of such statements. Not just because they’re stupid (as I will try and show), but because they have a powerful emotional value that tends to override our rational responses. Have we ever really stopped and analyzed such claims? Imagine aliens from Mars who hear a statement like “Pubs will destroy society.”<\/strong> The rest of us will say things like “No it won’t!” or “Please show me how<\/em> it will destroy society” or even “Destroy in what way?”<\/p>\n

\"Society<\/a>
Society - just a collection of people<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But guess what the Martian’s response will be? They’ll simply ask “Society? What’s that<\/em>?”<\/p>\n

And we stand speechless! How do we tell them what society is? The reason why we can’t explain it to them, is because it doesn’t exist! We made it up. Like the bogeyman.<\/p>\n

It may seem easy to define it as a collection of people (as the dictionary does.) So far so good. But when you say “This will harm<\/em> society”, what does it mean? That it will harm every single individual in that collection? That it’ll harm the majority<\/em> of people? Let’s say only 49% are “harmed”. Does that mean “society” is also harmed? Will\u00a049.5%<\/em> be enough?<\/em><\/p>\n

We use “society” as a noun. As in “This is a society.” But what are it’s characteristics<\/em>? I challenge anyone to give me the characteristics of society and which characteristics are harmful and why.\u00a0Individual people can be harmed, though we must understand what it means to “harm” someone<\/a>. But society<\/em> can never be harmed. Because it’s artificial. A fiction. A convenient tool usually used to control others.<\/p>\n

I’ve found that the best way to counter these statements is to force the person to provide specific examples. I got this inspiration from the Supreme Court when it struck down the cases against Khushboo for her remarks on pre marital sex. It simply asked her accusers to show a few examples of people who had been “harmed” by her remarks. Those accusing her were stumped! It’s very easy to say “This is harming society” but it’s notoriously difficult to give even two examples :D<\/p>\n

The same goes for those who say that legalizing homosexuality<\/a> for example will “destroy marriage.” \u00a0Simply ask those who say this to give even one <\/em>example of a marriage breaking down just because homosexuality has been legalized<\/em>. It’s possible that someone is a closet homosexual and that the freedom to be gay will lead a homosexual to walk out of a false marriage. But that means it was doomed even before the legalization. No one becomes<\/em> gay just because it’s legal!<\/p>\n

Narrowing down like this helps because it forces the moral police to become specific and demonstrate actual harm<\/em>. It forces them to use rational evidence instead of emotional hooks that work because of fuzzy concepts. And it effectively pulls the carpet out from under their feet. Try it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tear down sweeping statements like “xyz will harm society” – see how the moral police are using words to you try and control you<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rights-and-freedoms"],"yoast_head":"\n\u201cSociety\u201d is a big lie<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Tear down sweeping statements like "xyz will harm society" - see how the moral police are using words to try and control us\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bhagwad.com\/blog\/2010\/rights-and-freedoms\/society-is-a-big-lie.html\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u201cSociety\u201d is a big lie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tear down sweeping statements like "xyz will harm society" - 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