A socity's right to exist.

Great Debates
1

I’ve been pondering this for several months. Are there determining factors in a society’s right to exist, and if so what are they? I’ve heard some put forth that a society’s right to exist is insured by the fact that it exists, but I reject this argument on the basis this would mean that societies like Hitler’s Germany or the pre-civil war American South should have been allowed to exist. I decided that society’s should be judged on their merits, but then what should those merits be? The ones that I feel should be considered are:
1.That the society honestly attempts to provide the greatest good for greatest number while still striving to provide the greatest good to all.
2. Allows no atrocities to be committed by either itself or the its members.
3. Dose not restrict its members beyond that which is required to maintain order.
4. Dose not force its members into conformity in either ideas or expression.
5. Dose not try to force itself on other societies.

 However, once these principles are determined what standards must be used to judge whether the principles are fulfilled? For example what constitutes an atrocity? The conclusion I have come to is that a general consensus must be reached by considering the view points of several societies and used to formulate a general consensus about what would fulfill those above stated principles.
   
 Also, once you have done the neigh impossible and reached the before mentioned consensus you then have to judge to what degree a society must stray from the principles to forfeit its right to existence. I feel that minor divergence can be forgiven as societies, like its members, are not capable of perfection, but major divergence should not be allowed. 
 
 If a society is determined not to have a right to exist and steps are taken to end the society care must be taken that the means used do not, in fact, bring about more harm then the society being ended. Also it is not enough to end the harmful society; pains must be taken that a new society, acceptable it its members, is set up in its place. 

 These are my thoughts on societies' right to existence. They are based on the fact that I feel that it is not wrong to consider the right of other societies to exist. I fully realize that my views are likely colored by my American world view and I have done my best to take that into consideration when formulating these thoughts.

 So do those reading agree? Disagree? Expand on my points or shred them to tiny bits. Better my ego to die then my ignorance live.  :)
2

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Only individuals can have rights. At least as far as I understand the concept of rights they cannot apply to groups.

**

Short of genocide how do you just end an entire society? Germany, Japan, and the American south may have changed after their wars but their society certainly didn’t end. Since society changes I don’t think you can just end it.
Marc

3

IMO, your idea is not feasible.

To start with, it seems to me that rule #2 (Possibly #3 as well) breaks rule #4.

Also, the idea of judging other societies and ending those deemed to be without a right to exist would be in blatant violation of rule #5. The society enforcing the rules, now being in violation of them, would lose it’s own right to exist.

4

As pointed out in already rights don’t really apply to societies. However, the rights of individuals within a society dictate the acceptability of the society.

These have been fairly well formulated in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I’ll go out on a limb and say that all societies that respect those rights have justification and hence acquire a certain right extended to them by the individuals that they are comprised of.

To say that Hitler’s Germany didn’t have a right to existence is then in way correct, but it still doesn’t hold up. The German people of the time had a right to existence and by the UDHR (which had of course not been written yet, but still) had the right to choose their leadership.

Point is that what was later perpetrated by individuals in that same society although unacceptable still does not take away the inallienable rights of the UDHR. Note that I say individuals. It doesn’t matter if a majority elected them into government in the first place. That is one of the fundamental ideas with representative democracy, some individuals take over the accountability for the decisions and actions of a group of people in exchange for the right to decide.

In the case Germany under NSDAP, we as a world community found the actions of some of these accountable individuals and their functionaries so reprehensible that these individuals had forfeited their right to live. We carried that sentence out without prejudice, one of the rare cases where I agree with application of the death penalty. Wise from our mistakes in the past and by the atrocious example delivered by the forenamed culprits we did not obliterate Germany as a culture (I should know, I see tons of descendants of the people in question exercising their inalienable right to be German every day).

We did a pretty good job at almost obliterating the land they live in though. We held them in quarantine for over 40 years and to this day they are still, in social situations often enough unjustly condemned for actions that they as individuals had no influence on whatsoever.

To condemn a group and sentence them to be destroyed for something that some of them might or might not have done is exactly the error that Hitler and his henchmen committed. It is bigoted, it is terribly wrong and to act on it is a crime against humanity.

Anybody who likes can call on Godwin now because I did just compare the OP to Nazi doctrine, but I’ll stand up to that.

Nothing personal intended by that comparisson by the way. I surmise that the OP wasn’t meant that way and the way it was formulated seems to indicate intent to have been rather the reversed. It is however impossible to posit the idea of forbidding or destroying whole societies without ending up there, no matter how many good intentions lay behind that proposition.

Sparc

5

A society can be seen as an individual entity as much as a state can. So if there can be State’s Rights there can be the rights of a society.

Well, what I meant by end was “changed significantly from its previous state” which to me ends the society that was changed.

Again I need to clarify myself, which is my own fault for using vague language. By 4 what I meant was that a society should not restrict a members ideas or ability to express them through communication.

You have a point about 5. Kal what would be better is: 5. a society should not forcibly change another society that has not been determined through a a consensus of many different societies to be in gross violation of the before stated rules and unless other means have been attempted.

Spark you make an excellent point, but what I was speaking of was not the mass execution of the members of that society, but rather the removal of the conditions that make that society objectionable to the rules and those in charge that allowed them or caused the conditions to occur.

6

I see what you’re trying to get at, but I think there might be a problem with your line of reasoning. A society is by definition made up by the individuals it comprises. The culture of these individuals adds up to the sum total of culture in that society. This will most often mean a wide and extremely diversified cultural landscape that only has superficial similarities across its range. A shared language will increase the homogeneity or at least set the society in question apart enough for individuals outside that society to identify it.

Government and leadership does not make society. Nor do they put in place the dynamics that can be used for good or bad. Culture can be a two edged sword. Take the Tutsi and the Hutu tribes in Africa. If it hadn’t been for inherent conflicts in their culture and past the atrocities committed by one side on the other would never have come to pass. Yet the inalienable right to be Tutsi or Hutu remains untouchable. It’s just that they have no right to exercise that right at the other’s expense.

Therefore the government and leadership that made it possible for that to happen, as well as the individuals who actually carried out oppression, mutilation and murder are condemnable for crimes against humanity. Removing them from power, even using our most extreme form of punishment against them is not the same as going after the society in question.

Methinks you might be confusing society and government a little. Governments have rights and responsibilities, just like individuals. Actually along the lines of the UDHR they have these rights on loan from the individuals in a democracy and they hold them delinquently in the case of autocracies, oligarchies, technocracies, absolute monarchies and so forth.

More often than seldom a government rules over multiple societies that happen to live in the same country. Take the US as a good example and the budding EU as an even more blatant one. Maybe Monaco, the Vatican, Lichtenstein and San Marino are small enough for society and country to be equated in theory, but I happen to know several individuals from two of those mini nations and even there MHO is that the cultural differences between individuals are too big to talk about one discrete society in practice.

Sparc

7

I think you are right **Sparc[b/] I am confusing government and society too much. I will rethink my ideas and wording.