On 09/07/2014 10:24 AM, SS wrote:
I have had an amateur interest in the subjects that (I thought) were
studied under the headings anthropology and sociology.
After a couple of decades of imbibing information by osmosis and random
diffusion, it seems to me that these fields deal primarily with people
and societies as they exist.
There is no field that I know of that tells us what societies should be
like. I would have thought that if people study a thousand societies
over several thousand man years and document them classify them and
catalogue them, surely at least one person should have developed some
ideas about what a society should be like. Has there been an ideal
society? Is there, for example - a society in the past that lasted for
500 years or more without changing much? Does that mean it was better
than others that did not last so long? Or is the fact that it is gone
now an indicator that if it's dead it can't be good?
For example - if guidelines for a good society could be formulated,
would it not be feasible to teach it as a subject rather than simply
study existing societies and people? It could be debated and refined or
trashed. Who does that?
Science fiction writers, mostly. Also the odd futurist (which is to say,
a science fiction writer who can't build a story). The occasional dictator.
But there's a missing piece in your evaluation: how to determine what
features of society are desirable, and how to balance the trade-offs?
Strict dictatorships bring civil order, but at the cost of free speech
and toleration for deviance. Most will agree that a balance must be
struck, few can agree on where that should be.
Hence the resort to fiction.
Cheers,
Bruce
