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Look at society today. The world is riddled with crime, corruption, and immorality. The root of these problems come from a single source: the systems of government and morality that watch over us.
First, let us look at one of the most important problems in today's world, crime. With each passing day, more and more children drop out of schools to become career criminals. More and more men resort to animalistic criminal ways, simply because they do not know any better. The reason is not a failure of our educational systems, but a moral failing of our government in general. The reason is simple: man has no moral instinct. Human beings have no inherent knowledge of what is good or evil; the purpose of the state is to teach proper morals to society. But today's methods, proposed by misguided do-gooders, are wholly incapable of doing so. Why? Because of the way human beings learn. Today, child criminals are only scolded, never punished, and adult criminals are given light sentences in all-expenses-paid, state-sponsored facilities where they can learn from other criminals. These methods attempt to appeal to people's "better natures"--which is foolish because they have none. Instead, we should abandon our hopeless attempt to shy away from "cruel and unusual punishment" in order to stick with what works.
What these criminals--and society as a whole--do not remember is that the basis of all morality is duty. Today, society drones on and on about our "rights" while forgetting to tell us about duty. The results are predictable, because human beings have no natural rights of any nature. Look at the three famously proclaimed in our Declaration of Independence, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Life: what right to life does a man have who is drowning in the ocean? The sea will not harken to his cries. What right to life do two men have if they are stranded on an island, with only the other man as food? Which man's right in "unalienable?" Liberty: The men who signed this document knew that liberty was not a "right," since in doing so they pledged to buy liberty with their lives. The pursuit of happiness: this is unalienable, though it is not a right: it is simply the universal human condition. But society reminds us of it nonetheless. This is the soft spot that our nation suffers because of: society--and the state--does not remind us of our duty, but of our imaginary rights. No nation, so constituted, can possibly endure. Instead, the state must cultivate our moral sense, so that we may live in harmony and prosperity.
And what is this ideal moral sense? It is an elaboration of the instinct to survive; all moral rules are derived from this key instinct of human nature. Anyone who attempts to deny this basic principle is destroyed sooner or later--this is the proof of its validity. But moral rules are more simple than just this blind instinct; the survival of the individual is in fact quote low on the moral scale. Higher up on the moral ladder are concepts such as duty to family, duty to one's nation, and duty to the human race. It is this theory of morals that is absent from today's society, and for this reason problems such as crime and corruption exist.
Lastly, societies today are at fault when they scorn the military. They accuse leaders of causing unnecessary wars, bashing the army for being a "functionless organ" in today's world. What they forget is that wars are not caused by politicians, religions, or cultural differences--these are simply secondary factors. The truth is this: all wars are caused by population pressure. When two societies meet and there is only room for one, war is the natural and moral course of action. But this does not meet that we should implement birth control to prevent war--remember that societies who stop expanding will be wiped out by those who don't. So when one nation balances its population and declares it will never study war anymore, pretty soon (about next Wednesday) it gets crushed by a society that realizes that such a mentality is wishful thinking. The military performs a necessary and noble duty in defending the society it represents. Though civilians scorn military people, accusing them of being violent and barbaric, soldiers possess an important quality that many of these civilians lack: civic virtue. Each member of the military has shown that he willing to sacrifice his life for society, which is the noblest virtue a person can ever achieve.
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...so, what I am I talking about here? Please comment and include your guess--after enough people have commented I will post the answer.
I can't really tell, unless you want to either make military service mandatory or put criminals in the military.
ReplyDeleteis it an ethos or an actual plan?
The two things you mentioned are certainly part of it. But there's more to it.
ReplyDeleteAnd this is both and ethos and an actual plan.
totalitarianism.
ReplyDeleteI would say fascism, but close enough.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was obvious--I mentioned social darwinism (all wars are caused by population pressure), duty to the state (the basis of all morality is duty), and militarism (societies are at fault when they scorn the military).
it would have been obvious to me, but I didn't know the basic concepts of fascism (until now).
ReplyDeleteYes, those are the basic tenets of fascism. I think that this proves how people in the 30's were so easily tricked into letting the fascists take power--at first, their basic principles sounds convincing.
ReplyDeleteOh, and the "all wars are caused by population pressure" is completely untrue. It's actually a Hitler quote--that and Aryan superiority were his excuses for Social Darwinism. But I guess that part wasn't too obvious.
I was unaware.
ReplyDelete