“Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” is how Thomas Hobbes described life in the absence of society. His conclusion, 350 years ago, that society is necessary to maintain civilized relations between people reverberated in March, when Tea Partiers attacked a disabled man during a health care reform protest. With anti-social forces tearing at our connective fabric, it is essential to understand the value of society and to defend it.
Society is a network of institutions and relationships, from churches to public schools. It encompasses physical infrastructure, financial mechanisms, and social norms and behavior, as well as the legal system that supplies essential security and stability. Members of a well-functioning society are bound together by respect, trust, and need.
Society enables us to pool resources, share risks, and create opportunity. It provides safety to its members, an environment for social relations, and the non-violent resolution of differences. In doing so, society allows us to accomplish things we couldn’t as individuals, families, or communities.
American culture celebrates the ideal of cowboys and others who supposedly “go it alone.” The reality is no one goes it alone. Successful ideas, businesses and people are the products of society, nurtured, protected, and sustained by its rules and resources. As the investor Warren Buffett has acknowledged, “I personally think that society is responsible for a very significant percentage of what I’ve earned.”
Today, American society is battered by an array of forces. Connections between people have diminished as more time commuting in cars, watching television, and other secluded activities have reduced involvement in civic groups and sports leagues. The growing gap between rich and poor is socially corrosive, with income inequality at an all-time high.
Right-wing politicians have weakened our social institutions, trading public good for private gain. Margaret Thatcher, the former British Prime Minister, declared, “There is no such thing as society,” as she broke her nation’s unions and sold off its railway system. Likewise, in the United States, union decline – fostered by conservative policies – contributes to the waning of the middle class and the increasing wealth gap.
And then there is the poisonous politics of the Tea Partiers. Most alarming is the demonization of their opponents. Whether the target is Obama or immigrants, the “other” is an enemy, the disagreement is a battle between good and evil, and there is no compromise.
The potential consequences of this “with us or against us” mentality are disastrous: the erosion of respect’s most fundamental component – recognizing the humanity of others. The extremes of this are genocide, such as the Holocaust and the murder of an estimated 800,000 Rwandans, fueled by one tribe labeling members of another “cockroaches.” Even in less violent forms, it damages the ability to find common ground, identify shared interests, and resolve conflicts.
The rising number of “independent” voters is another symptom of weakening social solidarity. Lacking a coherent political identity or perspective, these voters can be appealed to by personality, won over by attitude, attracted by anger and finger-pointing. The inability to recognize and act upon collective interests can evolve into fear and misguided blame of our own neighbors. Authoritarian government thrives on social atomization, social scientist Francis Fukuyama has observed.
How do we combat this fracturing of society? As historian Tony Judt argues, the most important task may be reminding people of the essential role that government has played in keeping our society from collapsing. At the beginning of the Great Depression, Germany’s government, undermined by anti-social and authoritarian movements, was unable to accomplish things and lost credibility, leading to the Nazi’s rise to power.
In the United States, in stark contrast, the government successfully put people to work, met social needs, built public infrastructure, and sustained faith in our shared purpose and identity. The New Deal strengthened our social solidarity and our democracy.
Our government has just prevented another depression. But we, as a society, still have to prevent climate change, reform immigration policy, and achieve much more. The sooner we recognize our common interests, needs, and humanity, the better off we will be.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
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