A long time ago, the musical group Pink Floyd wrote and performed a song with the title, “Another Brick in the Wall.” The song is basically about what has come to be called “Social Control.” If you aren’t familiar with the song (and it is “ancient history” at this point), see “Another Brick in the Wall”:
A society, of course, requires some agreed-upon standards of behavior to be called a society. Not all societies develop and adhere to the same standards. If you are from the States and travel to England or Japan, for example, you will have to adjust to driving on the left side of the road. When it comes to stairs, not all cultures agree about which side should be for those going up and which side for those going down….
I have been wondering whether we aren’t entering (or perhaps have already entered) a period of increased social control. I was surprised to discover, for example, a store where as recently as last week I could go in, get a cart, make the rounds putting the things I wanted in the cart, and proceed to “check out.” That no longer works. The buyer now goes in the store, tells a store employee what’s wanted, and the employee goes about putting stuff in the cart. That was the routine at two places I went this morning. My question is why? How does that help either the store or the customer? Neither of these stores was the big grocery store where I do my weekly shopping. One was a health food store, and the other was the store where I buy bird seed. Next week I will know about my grocery store….
We all benefit, of course, when people agree to certain standards of behavior. We’re all safer, for example, when people in a culture drive on the same side of the street and agree with which side of the stairs should be “up” and which side should be “down.” The question is how much uniformity is beneficial. I hate to be paranoid, but…. I have, perhaps, seen more than my share of “futuristic” movies with themes featuring either “utopian” or “dystopian” social control. Regardless of the type of control, who benefits from increased social control?
Two novels come to mind:
I don’t pretend to know how much social control is optimum. Different cultures have come to different conclusions about that. In some ways, such differences determine political party affiliation in the States. I have questions but no real answers, or rather my answers change with regularity. That may be true for culture as a whole. After all, what we call “life” seems to be one grand experiment, doesn’t it….