What makes a Good Society?

In Rob Reimen's podcast, he seeks out the qualities that make up a good society. But before he attempts to answer this question, he first goes on a fact-finding mission to find out what society we are actually living in.

One example that Rob Reimen uses in order to analyze our society is an essay done by Paul Valéry; a French philosopher and poet who wrote after WWI about "The Crisis of the Human Spirit".

Reimen goes on to quote Valéry's philosophy;
"It is the human spirit that distinguishes us from animals. It is because of the human spirit that we can transcend our physical instincts, that we have an idea about past and future, that we have the power of imagination, that we can have empathy, that we have some idea about what is good: truth, justice, freedom, and so on and so forth. But Paul Valéry notes that the human spirit of morale men got mixed up. And he writes: 'We have become less sensitive and addicted to noise and excitement, and because we are less sensitive we are constantly in need of stronger means in order to satisfy our own sense of excitement.' "

Reimen then compares the movies of John Wayne to the current action-adventure movies of today (Bruce Willis and Tom Cruise films). Suddenly, movies which were once exciting in the 60's are now considered very, very boring.

"The same on the level of sex. It is not that long ago that even a nude part of the lack of woman could arouse a lot of sexual excitement. Believe me, that is no longer the case. So, it is like drugs. We are addicted to it, we need more of it, it has to be stronger." Thus, the mass media understands that the only way to gain our attention is by flashing the words "Breaking News!" in front of our faces.

Finally, Reimen conludes that Paul Valéry is the first one to make a connection between a society that is focused on entertainment all the time but is constantly living in fear and panic.

I cannot help but to agree with Valéry's theory of Western culture, particularly America. With so much technology and communications, the world becomes much smaller. News that is happening thousands of miles away is now everyone's business. With all of this information, people are forced to summarize it. Consequently, they must prioritize their values. They realize that AIDS in Africa are killing thousands, that Global Warming is a growing threat, and that illegal immigrants are changing the economy, along with all of the other matters in their own life. The information is definitely overwhelming, and as a result the people become less sensitive. Hundreds of years ago, the "breaking news" of the day was that Ms. Jonas' cat was stuck up in a tree. Back then, people were ignorant to many of the horrific wordly events, only being exposed to one or two in a lifetime. But now, it is a common event; world catastrophes happen every day. As a result, society looks to escape, and technology of Western Cultures fulfills this escapist appetite.

Perhaps a large reason that Americans have become less sensitive is due to our decrease of community relationships over the past decades. Dr. Joel Wade writes an article regarding good societies. Although he notes that America has succeeded in establishing some form of democracy into the government (a system so that all the people are represented, a.k.a. a key trait to a good society), he also notes that the government has turned into a pampering-machine. Since our government does most of the caretaking, the quality of caring for your neighbor becomes less demanding. Consequentially, only the large, catastophic events force us to come together. We become less sensitive and brush off the problems that we see everyday in our community, subconsciously believing that the government will come to the rescue.