What Are The Benefits of Society?

You don’t have to have a conversation with a group of politically engaged people before someone starts talking about the evils of society. And there’s no getting around the fact that there ARE downsides to this big experiment we’ve got going on. But once you drift away from the negative aspects, it becomes clear that there are plenty of benefits to coexisting, too, and it’s probably worth celebrating them more often than we currently do. Below, we take a look at five aspects of society that we’d all miss should they somehow be taken away from us.

A Sense of Community

Humans are social creatures. We don’t just enjoy spending time with one another; it’s something that we seem to need at a biological level. It turns out that giving and receiving hugs can lift people’s moods, for instance! So while there are always people in the world who frustrate and have us rolling our eyes, this isn’t true the masses of people. Those short interactions we have with shopkeepers, strangers, friends, and all the other beautiful people out there wouldn’t be possible if we didn't find a way to all live together.

Support When You Need It

Let’s travel back to, say, three thousand years BC. You’ve just got yourself a wild boar to eat, when someone else comes along, pushes you over, and takes it for themselves. You go to call the police, but can’t, because phones haven’t been invented yet, and neither have the police for that matter. No-one has got your back. That’s all different today. There’s always someone on your side, whether your problem is trivial or serious. If you’re refunded the wrong amount of money, there are consumer rights organisations you can turn to. If you lose someone close to you through someone else’s negligence, you can seek justice from a firm like SeekingJustice.com/personal-injury-lawyer/wrongful-death/. The act of all working together made it much more difficult for people to get away with immoral behaviour, essentially.

Opportunities and Prosperity

You're not just given a base level of protection when you’re part of a society. You’re also given the tools to better yourself. You’ll have opportunities to explore your creative side, have fun, and all-around be the best version of yourself. This is a relatively new phenomenon, too - all of those concepts would have been unthinkable even a couple of hundred years ago. In the meritocratic society we currently live in, anyone can rise to the top (of course, sometimes this is better in theory than in practice).

Passed Down Knowledge

Perhaps the greatest tool a society gives to its people is that of passing down knowledge. Societies aren’t reborn with every new generation - the new generation takes the ideas of the old society and tinkers with it, finding ways to improve upon them in the process. This is somewhat under threat in the age of the internet and globalisation when new ideas are nearly always favoured over the old. Still, some useful nuggets of information still make it through.