I believe our duty to “society” is a moral obligation to a free society and government. I should very specific in noting that I when I reference free society, I’m referencing liberal democracy in the socially contracted form which it operates in the United States and other similar nations in Europe and elsewhere. The notion that our duty would be to a liberal democracy plays an important role in what I believe to be a moral obligation because the specific role that government and society has historically played in the progression of humanity. The overarching duty that we, as members of society, have to the state is really one to other members as a whole. By participating in the social contract with the state, obeying the laws, practices, norms, etc, established by a free society, we participate in a communal act of national maintenance that holds together the fabric of liberal democracy that has given the world so much. By serving the state, and society, we are serving humanity by proxy. Certainly liberal bourgeoisie democracy is not perfect in its current state, however in a pragmatic sense it has been the most effective and free system which human history has produced to this point. Under its rule, we have substantial individual liberty, of which we must sacrifice a bit to keep stable our government. We as well, most importantly, have a regulated and controlled system in which to institute change in the form of elections and a legislature of representatives at a state and national level. As supposedly active agents in this system, we are not only beholden to the state in upholding its laws, but to be informed and participatory members of that democracy which is so dependent on its constituency. The efficacy of the state, to which we have a perpetual moral obligation as it serves humanity’s best interests, is reliant on its participants being active and informed about the decisions which the citizen body arbitrates. If the demos is to have the power that it has in a liberal democracy which it so flourishes under, then it must also be responsible members. The duty of the constituent of a free society is two fold: to obey the laws which that society has created, and to be informed and active participants in the process of the creation and execution of those laws so when they are unjust or unbefitting to the nation, there is a conscious effort to remediate injustices. I cannot speak, however, for a society whose system of government is not so free, other than that they should work, as best they can, to progress towards liberal democracy in their own way.
The act of serving the state, if done in the appropriate manner, should come with some reciprocity. This would befit the state’s and society’s sides of the social contract in that the sacrifice of certain liberties by the people should put a burden as well on society and the state to protect and serve the people. This reciprocation comes in the form of governance as far as “society’s” systematic end of the social contract. By obeying the laws and sacrificing small measures of individual freedom, the state then attains the ability and is burdening with the responsibility of upholding order in society so that the people can exercise what liberty they are granted in whatever way they then see fit. This responsibility manifests itself in the executive enforcement of laws and the provision of national security to protect the safety of the citizens who say, give up the right to own tanks and RPG’s. What society as a whole, besides through the contribution of government, owes those who obey the social contract is a more complicated issue. Delineating exactly the nature of what the body of society consists of is a problem which I’m honestly not sure I can answer fully. The United States, as an example, does not have a “greater community” that seeks to or is responsible for serving the country other than its government. The other side of “society” I suppose would be the generally unintentional amalgamation of private persons. The responsibility of this perhaps unwilling collective could possibly be the service and charity of the greater good. Redistributing wealth on a private scale, providing food and medical care to the underprivileged, efforts normally associated with motivated non-profits and many times demonized when done by governments. Social welfare would be the normative category that these “responsibilities” of non-governmental society would be placed under. Many activists, political theorists and public figures from Arendt to the John Birches believed that it was not in the jurisdiction of national politics to govern over the social practices and welfare of the nation. I personally believe that the social welfare of a collective people must be maintained by some body, and from a pragmatic perspective I would say that private interests do an incredibly poor job mobilizing and distributing effective and widespread aid in the social sense that is necessary to uphold the common good to the standard I believe it should be held to. While the mandate for upholding social welfare may not be popular sentiment, I believe that it should and will be as society liberalizes, and people will realize that the responsibilities of society are best manifested through actions of the state as those actions will be best dictated by an efficient and democratic body. While the efficacy of the state in the US may be in serious question in the present moment, the social welfare it provides and the good it does, combined with its potential, far outweighs that of the private sector of society, better fulfilling the responsibility of social welfare that society is beholden to.
While I do love Thoreau, and his relentless questioning of everything institutionalized and communal has led us well to today’s liberal democracy, I do not believe that civil disobedience has a rightful place in today’s society. I understand full well the constant need for shifts in policy and structure in government and in our laws to meet the demands of a perpetually changing society and world. I as well understand the need for great flexibility when it comes to satisfying the needs of individual liberty necessary to uphold an effective and free society. However, the reason our republic is wholly in service of human progress, and the underlying reason I believe that its constituency is so beholden to upholding its laws, is that it provides a system in which to contest the laws within the government itself. We can have “bloodless coups”. There can be reform on a massive scale without breaking laws in a liberal democracy. We have free speech, universal suffrage, legislatures of representatives so that when the demos feels there is an injustice, it can be righted with extralegal action and the order of society may be upheld. Impatience is understandable, and widespread reform is slow to take hold because of very intentional safeguards against the “mob” (the main pitfall of democracy). Certainly in the past as well, democracy has failed in protecting the basic rights of its citizens and unjustly took far too long to right those wrongs. However, in an effort to uphold government and society as we now know it, even if the people want to overthrow the government and establish an entirely new one, it can be done within the laws of the current institution (theoretically). In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson says very explicitly the right of the people to dissolve the entity which rules them if they see fit, as they are the ultimate and just wielders of power in any government. Luckily, we have established a government whose systems allow for the maintenance of the state and order while simultaneously allowing for radical reform is necessary or desirable. The effects of such radical reform, judicial activism, etc, within society or government are certainly debatable, however I do believe that the laws and bureaucracy’s in their current state have the ability to function ideally so that all reform can be done within the regulations of society.
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