Why are we Governed?

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I'm starting this thread for a debate about why and how humans form governmental systems.

This seems like a fairly interesting idea to discuss.

Note, too, that even before humans evolved, primitive caste systems were used by the more advanced organisms (e.g. Gorillas, ants are a prime example of a complex organisational system).

This is not a thread about anarchy.

[iNow]

I believe it is practically inherent in any social species. Even the child is governed by the parent, the pack governed by the alpha, the hive governed by the queen. We humans have just formalized into dictatorships, monarchies, plutocracies, and democracies.

 

We seek order and patterns in nature and will generally impose our own when they're not immediately present. Governing is one such outcome, and we've found the stability and consistency and value it brings to be valuable and worth repeating.

[swansont]

Someone has got to make the decisions.

 

Formal government springs up when a society gets too large for everyone to know everyone else in the region being governed. Small groups tend to be tribal, and leadership is often inherited or is open to competition and taken by the winner. That's similar to almost all social animal groups.

 

However, that doesn't work so well when you aren't related to the person in charge and don't have the corresponding social ties. You can substitute for this with a monarchy or theocracy, ruling by divine fiat, where the society has adopted a social structure that supplants the family structure for the larger groups, so you still have something in common, even if it's based devotion to a leader that's the result of social conditioning.

 

Even larger groups, coupled with literacy and the time for many to think about more than day-to-day survival, have developed more sophisticated forms.

 

[fiveworlds]

I'm starting this thread for a debate about why and how humans form governmental systems.

 

A better question would be where is not governed.

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Why did we and do we seek order? Many species evolved to live independently. Could human intelligence be affected by social structure, or vice versa?

[CharonY]

We find ranks and similar structures in basically all social animals. We do have these elements because we are social and created more elaborated version of it because we are (somewhat) intelligent.

[DimaMazin]

Why did we and do we seek order? Many species evolved to live independently. Could human intelligence be affected by social structure, or vice versa?

Humans have chosen scientific development which is connected with objects outside of their bodies. We have no pain when we operate another bodies also.

[iNow]

Why did we and do we seek order?

Order allows us to better understand the universe and consequently predict future outcomes. That ability led to increases in survival capability and was selected for. It's also how the cosmos itself operates... Ordered (just think of subatomic particle interactions and fields... We are in many ways just macro versions of those micro orders).

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Great contributions guys. Dima, could you clarify?

[MigL]

Is it really about order ?

Western governments are evolving away from telling people what to do. You are allowed to overeat yourself to a heart attack. Drink and drug yourself into a stupor in all night bars and safe injection sites. Practice all sorts of risky behavior with communicable diseases. Etc. etc.

We do however expect the government to take care of those people. And others who may not be as fortunate as we are, or who cannot take care of themselves.

We ( hopefully ) have evolved past the wildebeest who sacrifice their weak and injured to the lions.

[Airbrush]

As the human population grows there become more constraints upon humans. Like some people surviving on a life raft with a finite food and water supply. The group becomes more concerned about order and each is not allowed to eat or drink all they want.

 

If the world's population reaches about 20 Billion, then do you think people will have more or less freedom? Unless there are extraordinary techo advances soon to increase food, energy, and water production, not likely, more people means more governing, and life is that much less of an all-you-can-eat or drink party.

Edited October 6, 2014 by Airbrush

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I think that most problems in government occur when either the people do not know what they need or their ruler does not care what they need.

[s1eep]

I think aligning the majority with order alone is potentially going to cause suffering; for example, an African who is not as advanced and healthy because he may live in third-world Africa, and an Englishman, both have adopted a social system, scientific discovery and technological advancement; they both are aligned to order somewhat in character. This is bad for the African because there is a lot of chaos in nature and life can be very chaotic, knowing so much and focusing so much on order may lead to depression, which may have been avoided entirely if the Africans here didn't adopt a social system, technological advancement or the pursuit in scientific discovery, they may have found peace in living like the other animals. In the case of the well-off Englishman, this route may be helpful, but this still doesn't mean that one should treat chaos in nature as anything lesser than order.

Edited October 6, 2014 by s1eep

[Dekan]

I sincerely wish someone would govern the difference between "may" and "might". These words have been wrongly used twice in the above post. Which has caused me to suffer. And led to depression. Which might have been avoided entirely, if the poster hadn't adopted an increasingly prevalent misuse of English - saying "may" instead of "might".

 

Why do people keep doing it? I think it might be caused by this idea - that "may" is a kind of superior word. Like "whilst" is often thought to be superior to "while". Or "Between you and I", is thought to be better than the grammatically correct "Between you and me".

 

Perhaps it's just language changing and evolving. Perhaps in years to come, it'll become standard usage to say: "If you hadn't posted that, I may not have been upset".

At the present time though, such an abuse makes us lovers of the English language wince! English is the most sophisticated medium of communication so far devised by humans. It's above all other languages on Earth, for its richness, subtlety, pithiness and precision

 

So we ought to treasure it. And defend its rules. We don't want any of its rules to be broken - unless there's a very good reason for doing so. And in the case of blurring the subtle distinction between "may" and "might", there seems no good reason. Such blurring only causes ambiguity and loss of precision. So, please, can't we stop doing it?

Edited October 6, 2014 by Dekan

[Airbrush]

Interesting complaint about the usage of "may". I never noticed this. I always thought "may" and "might" are mostly equivalent, and the flexibility of the English language makes either usage correct. Unless you could read the mind of the writer to know his intentions and compare that with what he wrote. Anyone else notice this?

 

This is going off the topic of need for government. The more people and the scarcer the resources, the more government is called for by all interested parties.