| Squeakthedragon said: Talk about what's "natural" for societies can easily fall prey to the Naturalistic Fallacy: arguing that something is superior because it is "natural". But nature doesn't interact simplistically with human beings. Being aware of what they are, and of nature, humanity is able to make decisions that other animals cannot. As a result, you cannot assume "the natural way" is better, or the unnatural way either. It has to be taken on a case by case basis. When it comes to "cutting off those who don't deserve our help" it's tempt and gratifying to the ego of the person who sees themselves as having power, to subscribe to a "natural" philosophy of survival of the fittest. But even that cliche is commonly abused and misinterpreted. Survival of the fittest does not mean "the strongest, most powerful, most dominant" - it means the most adapted to survive. A seemingly weak creature that an subsist in a lean ecosystem will outlive a seemingly more aggressive creature that requires an unsustainable food supply. Those who have nurtured their own selfishness and sense of superiority, and have become proud predatory consumers and capitalists at the complete expense of being citizens, do not understand (or want to understand) that a society is only as strong as its weakest member, in the long run. Here's something that's also "natural" - every society which has hoarded wealth and resources into an increasing power elite has inevitably suffered the natural reaction to this: rebellion and the castles of the elite being burned an gutted by everyone who they've directly, or indirectly, stepped on the backs of. Right now, American greed and self-obsessed egoism is being manipulated by those with power, aided by the serfs who see themselves as the eager students of this philosophy and destined to enter the ruling elite one day themselves. (Another delusion historically encouraged by those with power. Get the serfs to fight among themselves and stratify. Give some favorite a few jars of honey and say "be good and some day all this can be yours too. You shall be rewarded for betraying your fellows.") The war against the poor is ongoing and a part of this. |
I'm not sure anyone is claiming that the "natural" order of things is superior, just that rapidly re-organizing society based on unproven principles without allowing any discussion and with no provisions for determining if things have gone wrong or correcting missteps is certainly going to end with a much worse society. For nearly a century this approach has been repeatedly tried to great praise from the academics that were proposing these changes be made domestically, and as these systems eventually devolved into a totalitarian state which kills its own citizens there is never an acknowledgement of how poor this approach was.
In the societies that have seen success in changing the natural order of things the approach has been much more reserved, that make incremental (often compromised) changes, where these changes are often reversed.
