Society Is A Shared Understanding
By P Atkinson (09-Nov-24)
A Shared Understanding of the meaning and use of words is essential for citizens to communicate. A Shared Understanding of beliefs about right and wrong is essential for citizens to share purpose so act as one creature. Hence a society (community) is a Shared Understanding, whose citizens' use of language is the exercise of this understanding, and whose behaviour is dictated by its citizens' beliefs about right and wrong: its morality.
All Human achievements are first thoughts before they become things. Hence, the creations of a society (community) such as cities, governments, armies, as well as communal achievements such as conquests and discoveries,everything that goes to make a society, must spring from a society's thoughts. Hence:
A Society(Community) is that group of a race of people sharing beliefs that allow a single shared understanding, which insensibly incorporates the racial character of the group. Hence all societies, from tribes to nations, are founded by a particular race with a unique understanding that is:
Expressed in the Unique Language allowed by the shared beliefs about words: their meaning and use.
Refined by Conversation, which is the daily expression and exchange of individual opinions; a mechanism that amends a society's understanding by promoting popular, while suppressing unpopular, notions. That is, all those ideas which match common feelings of right and wrong, will be repeated and magnified into reasons to act, while those which receive little or no support will inevitably be ignored; which makes conversation the ideas filter, or the mind, of the society.
Remembered by Tradition, which consists of beliefs about:
Right and Wrong, what citizens should and should not do, which becomes the basis for Laws and Manners. Thereby revealing the Duty of every citizen, hence their Identity and Purpose for society to thrive. And these beliefs are the Sanity, or Religion of the society, which is upheld by the Church.
True and False which is the knowledge, or Science of the society and the basis for its technology.
Thereby forming a single powerful creature, whose sanity is its Tradition upheld by violence inflicted upon:
Citizens who deny tradition by stigmatising and persecuting them as criminals, traitors, cowards, lunatics etc.
Other Societys by killing or enslaving their citizens.
Hence the ability to inflict violence is the measure of the strength of this creature.
A Society's Mind is similar in operation to an individual mind, except that audible conversation replaces silent thoughts, but the mechanism of understanding is the same — ideas, expressed in words, which are filtered by a code of values to determine which should become reasons for action. If a man is an irrational vegetarian crank whose conversation is mainly tirades against imaginary persecutors, then it is this process that will decide the man's future—whether as a despised social outcast, or as an absolute monarch, like Hitler. This does not mean that everyone believes what is popular, but unpopular ideas are ignored. Consequently:
By sharing the same process of thought as individuals, a society's mind is subject to the same shortcomings of understanding as individuals:
Understanding appears only after the formation of a basic set of values (morality), which become an essential and immutable part of the creature.
Personality as the understanding of an individual confers a personality, so does the understanding of a society, and this the culture of the society.
Honesty depends upon their nature, if unselfish, they will revere truth; otherwise truth will be discarded in favour of convenience. (See the two modes of societies.)
Depression when common purpose is lost, then uncertainty, anxiety and sloth reign. As revealed by the Great Depression, which paralysed the West until it regained its sense of purpose with the 2nd World War.
Sanity may be lost, a graphic example being the Nazi phenomenon, when a whole nation behaved as a lunatic.
Senility occurs as the brain ages over time and the organ that allows understanding fails.
in the individual it is corruption of the brain won by aging brain cells.
in the society it is the corruption of tradition that inevitably occurs with the repeating need to imbue the founding beliefs about right and wrong — the religion of the society — onto the next generation. This process is not perfect, so in time the faithful become a minority, and tradition starts to be discarded.
As words are the currency of thought, the use of language is critical to both private and public understanding, with the particular choice of words revealing the nature of an author's understanding. So the nature of the literature published by a society must reflect the nature of that society's understanding. Hence the history of a society's literature must be the history of that society's understanding.
As the nature and concerns of communal conversation are echoed by the media, the media can be considered the mirror of the mind of our society, with the character displayed by the media being the character of our society.
Lifespan Of Society A society exists as long as it can maintain its shared understanding through successive generations. And as all understandings are based upon a set of beliefs about right and wrong, this demands rearing children to revere the religion of their parents. For the moment the faithful become the minority, the society has lost its shared beliefs about right and wrong, which are tradition, so tradition is forcibly discarded. Whereupon the Populus stop being an ordered and disciplined citizenry, restrained by revered tradition but become a mob who revere only themselves and their opinions, restrained only by their fears and fancies. Then the society becomes increasingly chaotic, deluded and impotent as:
Common purpose is lost so replacing a vigorous unity with paranoia and incompetence.
Superstition replaces science so winning poverty through delusion.
Conditions that can only get worse until the society is eradicated.
A Simple Example of the creation and development of a society (a single shared understanding) can be found in the book "The Great Trek" by Oliver Ransford. This history of the Boers describes how these people came together and formed a communal understanding, expressed in its own unique language Afrikaner: so forming a society with the pride and ambition needed to violently dominate surrounding societies. Indeed, Boer tradition celebrates victories like Vegkop and Blood River as of crucial and lasting significance.