Today we are going to consider man is not merely in itself, and we will consider man as a system component, which means that we will consider its relationship with society.
In order to be able to make any system of some individual elements, it is necessary that these elements have some uniform properties.
What does this mean in practice? This means that in order for the phenomenon of society to exist, most people must respond to certain stimuli in a strictly defined way. They should fear the same things, they should pursue the same goals, they should value the same amenities, they should speak the same language, they should adhere to the same social norms. If you put an Indian from the jungle in our society, he will not be a member of the society, but will be an alien element. It will be bad and him and the society that surrounds it.
People whose properties do not fit into the norms are persecuted.
Each society has unique characteristics. What are these properties? First of all, there are rules, that is, restrictions. A society appears when it establishes certain rules by which its members must live. Why is this done? This is done in order to improve the survival of society as a whole.
For example, a society in ancient times banned closely related marriages, which allowed it to reduce the number of defective members and increase the population. After that a tribe had the opportunity to conquer all the surrounding tribes. After what, other tribes were forced to adopt this bounced back, either they died.
Then, millennia later, another tribe decided to ban cannibalism. This norm significantly reduced the tension within the society, after which the members of such a tribe ceased to be afraid that they would be eaten. This gave them the opportunity to work more closely with other members of the tribe, which increased their productivity. In addition, it is possible to take strangers to themselves, which again increases strength and in addition increases the knowledge of the tribe about the world. Over time this tribe gained advantage compared with neighboring.
Every norm, every ritual, every law, and every taboo once had a rationale. But the chief or shaman who made up the rule said that from now on we would live like this, and whoever disagreed would have to deal with this big stone on which we sacrificed shoals.
When people (and not only) are punished for disobedience, they very quickly learn to think that they have chosen this way of behavior(a person does not want to admit to himself that he is just afraid).
Wanted to give an example of an experiment about 5 monkeys and a cold shower, but have not found the source, who conducted the experiment and when, so perhaps this experiment is a fake. Anyone interested — here's a link to a description of the experiment.
How does society govern us?
First, I want to say at once that I believe that the influence of society on us is a good thing, but still it is worth knowing in what ways it does it.
The first thing that comes to mind is the apparatus of violence and coercion, but I am interested in more subtle tools.
The fact is that in the minds of each of us there are loopholes, knowing that we can be controlled. Our main vulnerability with which we can be manipulated is our desire to be good. The good news is kind, gentle, merciful, generous and etc Great quality, but as long as they have their limits.
Take politeness, for example. In itself, politeness is a wonderful human quality, but in addition to the positive consequences, it carries some danger. For example, when we are politely approached with a request, the rules of politeness require us to respond to such a request, and in order to refuse a person, the rules of politeness require some kind of argument. If for some reason we have not found what to answer, we often have to satisfy the request, even if we do not want it.
Perhaps many of us feel uncomfortable when a professional beggar politely asks us for alms, and we refuse him. When we do this, we immediately feel greedy, callous and rude, because it is very difficult to politely refuse. This way we can feel bad when in fact we just didn't let the crook take advantage of our beliefs. In this case, beggars are simply exploiting our vulnerability.
But continue to be polite, kind, generous and merciful! You just need to remember that you are free to decide when to show these qualities. And that you have every right to refuse a request that you do not like, without explanation.
In addition to the desire to be good, there are many other loopholes, each of which represents a belief that we learned a long time ago. One of such beliefs is belief in miracles, about than I already wrote.
From time to time I will describe our vulnerabilities.