Sometimes the odd phrase can tell you everything you need to know about the kind of philosophical assumptions, held either wittingly or not, that people carry around in their heads. In a rather fluffy BBC TV news item this morning about how elderly gardeners are helping young schoolkids to learn about the great outdoors, a character involved said that this showed the “valuable contribution that senior citizens make to society”. For some reason that really bugged the hell out of me.
There is this continued use of the word “society” as if this were a sort of person. I have contributions that I make to my married life such as paying certain bills and taking care of my wife if she gets ill or needs help, for instance, and I am very delighted to do so. I contribute to paying my mortgage by going out to work. I make contributions to certain services by paying for them, willingly or not, via private payments or through the violence-backed channel of tax (although “contribution” is not the right word in the latter case). But the idea that Johnathan Pearce’s activities somehow “contribute to society” is so much collectivist nonsense.
The turn of phrase shows that how people choose to live their lives is not viewed through an individualistic perspective – the idea that people are entitled to pursue their lives for their own sake and happiness – but according to some sort of utilitarian or altruistic calculus, as Ayn Rand might have put it. There is actually something rather chilling about this, in fact. What if some person decides that the oldies are not making a “contribution to society”? Should they be put down, like a crippled dog?
Very well put! Nothing to add. 🙂
As a side note, isn’t there an implication in that phrase that this is all senior citizens are good for? Not to mention that most have already contributed over their lives anyway – should they all feel obligated to contribute in this way? I think many would want to relax or spoil their grandkids.
You lost me here, Johnathan. Recognising voluntary contributions benefitting society does not necessarily lead to judgement of the lack tereof. There is such a thing as conduct beneficial to the society we live in, if only by quiet, unobtrusive example. Not everything involving society is collectivist, so let’s not get carried away by our fear of collectivism.
JP,
I didn’t quite see where you were going with that until your last sentence which was the money-shot for me.
And JP, I suspect you do contribute to society in a number of ways. You earn money and buy goods and services with it which keeps people in jobs and things like that.
Martin, I am sure there is a lot that folk do, even out of the most selfish interests, that benefits the general population in some way.
That is not, however, quite the point that the BBC person was making about the “contribution that senior citizens make to society”. The person was talking about people as if they are a sort of resource to be used. Now, of course if people, elderly or otherwise, like to do things that confer benefits on others as a voluntary, charitable activity, that is great. For example, why could not the BBC guy simply say that helping to show kids how to grow food or whatever is great fun for the seniors as well as the children? In other words, shift the frame of reference away from the idea that we all exist to serve “society” in some way.
“What if some person decides that the oldies are not making a “contribution to society”?”
Lady Warnock has already explained to us what should happen in this situation
A thoroughly anti-libertarian argument by Ms Warnock you link us to there, Andrew. Well done!
The baseball player Jackie Robinson famous for breaking baseball’s racist ‘color barrier’ with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 is often attributed with the following famous quote
‘A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.’
This is invariably trotted out by the media as a wonderful sentiment. It is supposedly inspirational and I have seen it emblazoned all over the place.
I personally find it a profoundly sickening notion
Yep, spot on.
Many years ago, drinking with one of my lefty mates, he was unable to comprehend that society was naught bar an abstract concept, shorthand for the mutual interaction of individuals. He was convinced that it had a concrete existence, separate from the people who made it up.
On a separate example, again many years ago, Bonny Prince Charlie was quoted in the Evening Standard, in reference some sort of local government/private enterprise initiative, as being pleased to see business “cooperating with society”.
Weird.
And Warnocks attitude is exactly where this sort of attitude takes us. Do you notice that it has taken a little under one lifetime, from the end of the second world war, for the left to forget the implications of eugenics and to start advocating it again? Just as it did in the ’30s. Benefit society by killing individuals.
I guess what I read into the statement is what isn’t explicitely said – the implication is that these people are useful, so you shouldn’t complain too much when your stuff is taken to reallocate to them. That’s the ultimate background to collectivist thinking. You do have to read into it I suppose, but I think it’s the correct assumption as to where the BBC character would be going. Of course the territory of thinking highly of older folk but not feeling compelled to be shaken down on their behalf (with a slice going to the house for administration) doesn’t exist. Either you like older people and are willing to sacrifice at gunpoint, or you hate them and want them on the garbage pile.
J.P. –
Of course you are spot on about the underlying “philosophy” of so much of the BBC methane, especially that which drifts west to the U.S. where we have so much of the same.
This is but another example (minimal at that) of the “personification,” really the reification, of spontaneously organized human interactions – most often seen and heard in references to “Government” (whether viewed as an “institution,” “establishment,” or “mechanism”).
Conflating that issue (reification) with use made of “contribution” or “contributing”) to impress a collectivist concept of human interactions takes us down a different path of semantics.
Even the terminology of Society has led to the differential use of “social organization” for clarity of intent. We certainly don’t cavil at Poppers use of that term.
Its irritatingly condescending to use that phrase. Those of advanced age have been contributing to ‘society’ their whole lives, no exceptions. To use the phrase seems to imply that they haven’t been and are a bunch of useless spongers. Bloody newspeak pisses me off.
Interesting how some commenters here, e.g. CountingCats and RRS, apparently view society mainly as an organisation oppressing and hostile to individuals. Fact is that societies are created by the herd animal homo sapiens for better survival in a group. Involving humans, this requires and therefore includes a sizeable dose of psychology. If one believes that humans can somehow be educated to deny the value of society and live and let live totally individual lives, one is as much doomed to fail as are those collectivists that believe in reeducating their charges to deny themselves the profit motive or live the dream of total equality, all for the common good, naturally. Ain’t gonna happen – it’s against human nature.
There is, of course, no such thing as “society”.
I always thought that was an unfortunate turn of phrase, because of course taken at face value it’s clearly false, but I knew what the lady meant. As Johnathan and RRS say, it’s this personification of society that doesn’t exist; the idea that it can be something other than the simple totality of all human interaction.
Or perhaps more accurately, that it is all human interaction that’s deemed “good”, while the rest exists outside it. Come to think of it, I wonder what they call that part.
Come to think of it, I wonder what they call that part.
The private sector.
Martin ?
From what do you draw that conclusion about the views of RRS?
Individuals spontaneously organize into coalitions and maintain groupings that are perceived by them to provide benefits that outweigh burdens. Among those institutions/establishments/mechanisms are entities which some would urge us to accept as having an existence (reifying) separate and apart from the component memberships. We are urged to accept that reification so that the entity may be used as an instrument by those who would influence, direct and control the activities and interactions of human conduct.
It is not the entity, but its use, which is the “oppressive” force you speak of.
Individuals subordinate their individualisms within family, clan, tribe and communities out of traditional experiences, emotional and physical needs, and often for personal agrandizements.
When we hear “the family comes first,” “the honor of the clan is paramount,” “order in the tribe is the priority,” we are well-advised to be assured of why, in each and every instance, and that is especially true as the groupings enlarge for other common objectives. Otherwise, as experience shows, the urge of some to direct the conduct of others will prevail.
It is not interesting, Martin, because that is not what they say. When a classical liberal uses the word “society” or for that matter, “community”, they are describing an assemblage of individuals and the traditions, values, codes, rules, institutions and groups that those individuals create and support. “Society” is not a thinking, acting being like a person is. When people use terms such as “getting a fairer deal from society”, or “owing a favour to society”, they are talking illogically through the sloppy use of language.
And the clarity of language is vital because so many otherwise contestable notions get smuggled into our ways of thinking by this sort of thing.
Hah! Good point.
The private sector *is* a part of society. Society largely happens because people trade.
Y’all think “society” is oppressive because you are “subjects.” Think about it.
As an RIP (retired idle parasite) I recall in the 1940’s when grandad taught me how to plant veggies and spuds, and deal with chickens, he was simply doing the normal thing that everyone did. Society did not come into it, it was simply about making sure we could eat. At that time the “community” may well have failed to provide this at some point.
Point taken Johnathan. It is semantic in the same way as “This taxcut is costing the state …” But one can get to splitting hairs. It would be interesting to find out what people really have in mind when they use the word “society”. I bet very different depending on context.
It’s the “officials” (there is another one for you, like “authorities”) to watch out for. They make it clear by their actions that they mean their powers bestowed unto them by society.
The magical thinking that is required to buy into the lie that `society’ exists as some kind of ideal, unity, pure and moral and good that somehow I, as an individual, owe everything to and cannot exist outside of is a lie as old as so-called civilization itself – even predates civilization, obviously. Surely after the Enlightenment we are better than that? Do we still worship the Fatherland, the Godhead?
SOCIETY DOES NOT EXIST. Yes, communities made of individual humans – families, groups of friends, on-line communities, work-places, charity groups… all of these, and more, do exist, yes… ever-changing, breaking and re-forming in response to change and the pressures imposed by the environment around them. SOCIETY does NOT exist. `The International Community’ does not exist. These are lies, stuff of magical thinking, talismans used to shut down critical thinking.
`Society’ is a con-job. The lie on which political power is based. Nowadays, since God is dead, it’s our new religion and Martin is just one of the faithful.
Jerome:
I only find it sickening if Robinson was referring to the lives of people other than himself (Was he?) Otherwise I absolutely agree with him, as far as my own life is concerned.
Er, the quoting thingy got botched there – sorry.
Interesting how some commenters here, e.g. CountingCats and RRS, apparently view society mainly as an organisation oppressing and hostile to individuals.
Wot? How on earth did you reach this conclusion? I take no such view.
Society is a morally neutral concept, and is simply a shorthand term for the sum of the interactions between individuals (and I am simplifying here. Don’t expect me to start defending this definition in a formal debate). Those interactions can take many forms, some of which are beneficial to individuals, some not so much.
My objection is to the sloppy thinking which seeks to turn the concept of society into something it is not, or to ascribe a value to people based on some sort of putative contribution to society.
People are of value because they are people, and for no other reason. Baroness Warnock clearly disagrees, and I find her personal opinions deeply worrying. This does not reflect on society, but on her personally, and those who agree with her.
per Counting Cats.
Absolutely, hold an (non-contributing) infant; instruct or amuse a burdening, consuming child, then comment. Perhaps one might cavil at applying the term “value,” because it raises the issue of “comparative worth,” but life and lives are not the derivatives of social organizations, they are the causative media for such organizations.
Johnathon, and others, you can all contribute to (samizdatan) society by telling us what the weather has been like over there, in Britain.
I mention it because I heard from a relative, who complained that they hadn’t really had a summer this year. Then I read a newspaper quote from your ‘The Daily Telegraph’ of five years ago, telling their readers that Britain can expect all summers to be like the last hot and dry summer (of 2003); Contrasted with a quote from the same paper this September, about how rainy and cold and miserable the past year had been.
Is that true, in Britain? If so, what will Global Alarmists say now?
(Here in Australia, our winters are getting wet again, though we have a bush-fire alert for summer- New Zealand is trying to lure us there for snow holidays, and talking about how they have more snow this year!)
To those who seem to have a rather “wooly” definition of “society” –
Perhaps, being more familiar with it than I, you might introduce it to me. I don’t want to buy it a pint, mind, but while it’s looking the other way I’ll give it a good kick in the nuts. Thats for stealing everyone’s money over the years. Or perhaps I could even have it arrested before the men in white coats cart me away. Society is imaginary, like governments, God and fairies.
As Mrs T said, there is no such thing as society, there’s only people behaving as they do. Arrogant, authoriatarian organisations like the BBC push their own concept of society to justify their own existence.
Now hang on a second. There most certainly are such concrete things as societies, in very much the same way as there are guilds, unions and associations. As to whether something like ‘society’ exists, well, that’s like asking whether something like ‘economy’ exists or not – after all, the ‘economy’ is also just a bunch of trades going on.
‘I’ don’t exist either, except as a massive number of interactions between individual cells doing their own thing. The fact that they’re programmed to do so is immaterial.
I otherwise agree that our choices are our own, and we should be free to make them. I just don’t think that you can deny the usage of the word ‘society’ as an abstraction (or a set) of a number of individuals.
It keeps needing to be said, there is such “thing” (enity) as “society” – civil society is just that, the complex web between individuals and associations (such as families).
That is all “society” is – that web of civil interactions.
It is vitally important (life would be impossible without it) but it is also vital that people do not think of it as a “thing” an enity that can do things.
If they think like that, then “society” is mutated into “state”.
A similar thing is true of the word “community”.
“Community” is good, “community organizers” (who turn everything into politics and the state) are evil.