The Faults of Modern Society...

The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. Through the exponential advancement of modern technology, the life-expectancy of those of us who live in "advanced" countries are greatly increased, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering and have inflicted catastrophic damage on the natural world in the process. The continual development of technology will only serve to worsen the situation, if not end the very existence of Mankind. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world in a bid to attain a "better" place to live in. It will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in "advanced" countries.

The industrial-technological system may survive or it may break down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve a low level of physical and psychological suffering, but only after passing through a long and very painful period of adjustment and evolution, at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine. Furthermore, if the system survives, the consequences will be inevitable: There is no way of reforming or modifying the system so as to prevent it from depriving people of dignity and autonomy. If the system breaks down, the consequences will still be very painful. But the bigger the system grows the more disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is to break down it had best break down sooner rather than later.

My arguments may sound rather extremist in nature but take a few moments to think about the following before you point your fingers at my accusations.

Psychologists use the term "socialization" to designate the process by which individuals are trained to think and act as society demands. A person is said to be well socialized if he believes in and obeys the moral code of his society and fits in well as a functioning part of that society. The moral code of our society is so demanding that no one can think, feel and act in a completely moral way. For example, we are not supposed to hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other, whether he admits it to himself or not. Some people are so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have a non-moral origin. Such individuals are perceived to be "oversocialized".

Oversocialization can lead to low self-esteem, a sense of powerlessness, defeatism and guilt. One of the most important means by which our society socializes children is by making them feel ashamed of behavior or speech that is contrary to society's expectations. If this is overdone, or if a particular child is especially susceptible to such feelings, he ends by feeling ashamed of HIMSELF, not the unwanted act. Moreover the thought and the behavior of the oversocialized person are more restricted by society's expectations than are those of the lightly socialized person. The majority of people engage in a significant amount of naughty behavior. They lie, they commit petty thefts, they break traffic laws, they slack off at work, they hate someone, they say spiteful things or they use some under-handed trick to get ahead of another guy. Most social scientists believe that the acts are committed in the attempt to release the intense emotions evoked by the conflict caused by modern society to human beliefs. However, the oversocialized person cannot do these things, or if he does do them he generates in himself a sense of shame and self-hatred. The oversocialized person cannot even experience, without guilt, thoughts or feelings that are contrary to the accepted morality; he cannot think "unclean" thoughts. And socialization is not just a matter of morality; we are socialized to conform to many norms of behavior that do not fall under the heading of morality. Thus the oversocialized person is kept on a psychological leash and spends his life running on rails that society has laid down for him. In many oversocialized people this results in a sense of constraint and powerlessness that can be a severe hardship. Oversocialization is among the more serious cruelties that human beings inflict on one another.

Oversocialization is just one bolt in the awful machinery of modernism. I am not asking everyone to overthrow the government but just think about the direction of where we are heading and think about the consequences on our future generation.