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viewing society individually

I thought about this topic on many occasions. Talked about it with some people. How I miss having philosophical discussion. :)

Many years ago, I took a writing exam with this a topic along the line of 'Is there a best way to govern our society?'.
I have always wondered about social study. It's not science, yet some similar methods are used in social studies as in natural science. But how can you use methods that deal with predictable behaviors of non-living physical entities on something as complex and unpredictable as humans? Yes, I used to think that human behaviors are unpredictable. I have changed my mind during the last few years. Instead of viewing humans individually, if we view them as a system (society), we can come up with theories to predict their behaviors. Although those predictions will come with uncertainties, isn't that just the same as in natural science? Attached with the abilities to predict behaviors is the power to control them.
It's only when you look closely, microscopically to the individual that social theories could potentially break down. It's ironic how we can make an analog of that fact with physical theories.

That was a little off the topic of how I thought about social theories as oppose to viewing humans as individual.
Now let's look at it from the opposite view. Can we use the rules that suppose to govern individual person to govern societies as a whole?

In particular aspect, I want to talk about Buddhism. There was a question raised about how the teaching in Buddhism does not take in the fact that we have to be responsible for our society as well as be responsible to ourselves. The teachings in Buddhism teach us the way to live our own life in order to lead a peaceful and good life.
We are responsible for our own actions and only our actions, not anyone else's. What about the situations when we have to decide to do something wrong for a greater good? For example, what about the situation when we have to lie in order to save someone?
Many people will say that it's ok to lie if it's for a good cause. I wonder. According to Buddhism, if you intended to lie, then you are responsible for that lie. That means you did something wrong (yes, someone might want to argue now that's it's not as wrong if you had good intention, but I'm not talking about the degrees of how wrong it is. I'm talking about the black and white distinction between wrong and not wrong). For people who agreed that it was wrong now might want to say something like this: I know it's wrong, but I did it anyway because I'm willing to be responsible for the lie if it means I can save someone. This exit strategy might lead to the fact that there wasn't a course of action that is absolutely right. You had to sacrifice something. Either you take that responsibility of lying, or you take the responsibility of ignoring someone else when you could have saved that person. Many people might be willing to take this view since many believe that there are no black and white rules or morality in the first place. I still have a problem with it. Shouldn't there be a better solution, one that won't make us do anything wrong? Shouldn't that be the case if the teaching of Buddhism is as powerful as it suppose to be? If the teaching cannot guide us to make the (absolutely)'right' choice but one that we will have to compromise some values over others, how could the teaching be that useful or practical?

I have strayed so much off the topic, but it is relevant. I still need to write about individual rules as oppose to society rules. But that will have to be some other time.

ps. If for some strange reasons someone actually read the whole thing, I just wanna say sorry about the rough draft version of this. I need to think about this more carefully.

ps2. there's no philosophy subsection?

Create Date : 30 กันยายน 2552

Last Update : 30 กันยายน 2552 3:02:29 น.

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