2025

It boggles my mind that we are even debating whether or not we should use the polio vaccine which has saved literally millions of lives. No matter what anecdotal “evidence” about what somebody says happened to someone somewhere sometime, vaccines have proved over and over to be the best way to protect ourselves and our children.

Perhaps it is time to go back to some of the original thinkers on how we humans come to social decisions. When the dogma of original sin waned, philosophers like Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau started to contemplate different ideas about what the nature of humanity was prior to social norms. Hobbes, famously, declared life without social structures would be lived, “in continual fear, and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” He believed in a strong government which would keep folks from behaving poorly.

Rousseau, in contrast, believed we are naturally good, have few actual needs in life, but are corrupted by society. He believed nature, without social structures, would be largely peaceful with no real need for the passions created by society.

We rarely have such debates today but the probing of basic human emotion and needs is, and always will be, relevant. Society evolves, changes, according to our perceived needs and desires. The social structures then, in turn, influence our assumptions about what we need and ought, rightly, to desire.

We, as a result of our social conditioning, come to believe the norms of society are immutable and right, that what we think is of ultimate value and questioning those values is akin to blasphemy.

We latch onto symbols and expressions of support for the social norms as sacrosanct. We pay lip service to concepts that are, quite simply, illogical. In our society, we talk as if capitalism is sacred, as if everyone who puts on the uniform is a hero, as if the ability to quote the Bible imparts holiness. There are many casual assumptions which take the place of actual reasoning regardless of whether or not they’re even logical.

Cynicism is not really socially appreciated. The cynics among us tend to regarded as mere curmudgeons, unpleasant folks we’d rather not invite to our gatherings. Internal cynicism can, on the other hand, help us orient our thinking so we aren’t simple automatons being pushed into group think by the economic and political forces that dominate the landscape. Asking ourselves the hard questions about ultimate realities instead of simply mouthing popular platitudes is essential to personal freedom.

If, as Rousseau thought, we’re simply creatures of the dominant social structures then claims of free will become ludicrous.

Politicians are virtually never original thinkers. They get a sense of people’s mood and then rush to get out in front of the parade and loudly proclaim it was all their idea in the first place. Putting faith in the pronouncements of politicians who seek power leads to group think which denies freedom of thought and inquiry.