9 Ways Social Harmony is Preserved
Updated: May 13
There are many ways a social construct maintains its harmony. However, not all of these ways are completely positive or completely negative, and some are neither good nor bad, but simply natural, and it depends on the specific social construct.
It creates a system of laws that brings freedom at the same time it brings submission, and may bring reward as well as punishment.
It creates many organizations of enforcement to ensure that the population is functional and obedient to the laws of the state.
It creates a system of ideas whose purpose is to be collectively believed as true, to further maintain not only obedience, but to promote social coherence among its members. Some of these include religion, culture, a set of norms and ceremonies.
As mentioned before, it promotes those who remain loyal and productive to it, and punishes those who do not, or even do the opposite: protest and rebel, with the worst being committing crimes. This is true even in democracies, even if in a low frequency. It is a system of carrot and stick: do what is considered in that construct to be good, and you will get the carrot; don’t do good, or even do the opposite of what is seen as good and proper - and you will be persecuted by the stick.
It generates stress in the minds of those who do not go along with it, or do not go along with it enough in its perspective. The more successful you are in the eyes of a social construct, the more stress you will receive, because that “enough” is to be maintained on a regular basis, lest it deteriorates, and then you might be possibly replaced by another in a constant game of power and luxury. Renounce the social life, and you might suffer from stress and from a possible imperialistic intervention, from those who think obeying the norms of the social construct is an ultimate good, even if they are to want what they see as good for you.
It could install fear in the minds of people, for them to obey it and to maintain its coherent harmony. This fear could extend to different degrees, from threatening to imprison you and to eventually beating you up in the name of the law, to making you afraid of the abnormal and of the unwanted, like having minimal to no social life (abnormal), to being obese (unwanted).
It could deceive you by presenting you something as true while it isn’t, or showing you only a piece of truth, as the whole truth. That is how it might attempt to prevent you from thinking for yourself and using a healthy sense of skepticism. As mentioned before, this even applies to democracies.
It could put you in a state of shame, in order to teach others not to do whatever it is that you did, from beating up a helpless animal, to whatever that is eccentric but doesn’t make any harm, nor is immoral. It could also use you as a scapegoat to preserve the power of an authority trying to preserve itself in the minds of others.
It may take your achievements as their own in the mind of others, just because you originate from it (school, country, etc.), and apply your achievements as something that is a part of the collective, while in execution is actually your own, distinct achievement. Have you, the single individual, have returned a wallet to someone who lost it? Great? See how much of an altruistic organization we are! …it is a part of promoting social coherence.
As you can see, there are a lot of ways which social harmony is preserved within society. However there could be more that were left unmentioned. Regardless, we can conclude that a society is usually a well-oiled machine, built upon the limitation of the individual to keep them in line, whether or not that limitation is justified or fair.
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