THE HUMAN SOCIAL EXPERIMENT

What is the "glue" of the Universe? What directs the orderly arrangement and harmony of movement of it's members?
Night turns to Day; Season to Season; Each Planet and Heavenly Body in harmony with all the rest.
What directs this orderly arrangement and harmony of movement?
Is it Gravity.. this mutual attraction of each member to each other?
What is the "glue" of Human Society...Whose absence creates disorder, chaos, and mutual self-destruction? Was this provided by the Nazarene...but ignored...Is this the "glue" of Human Society?

"Learn, wretches, learn the motions of the mind;
Why you were made, for what you were design'd;
And the great moral end of human kind".
(Poor Richard's Almanac, 1749)

"But you ask, what is the good of man, I can only tell you that it is a kind of power of choice".
(Epictetus: Discourses and Euchiridion)

There appears to be two biological strategies for the survival of a species: natural selection directed against the individual per se as a member of the species; and, natural selection directed against the individual as a member of a social group as well as a member of a particular species. In the latter instance, the force of natural selection, while acting on the individual's genotype, is directed not on individual survival per se but on the survival of the social group. Thus, group characteristics, particularly behavioral characteristics, are the focus of natural selection.

The honeybee, Apis mellifera, exemplifies a highly structured, complex, and successful society. There are three casts within the honeybee society: the Queen, the Workers, and the Drones. All three casts are genetically determined, each with it's fixed and invariant function (directed towards colony survival) in society. The essential feature of honeybee society is the homogeneity of function within each cast: its fixed and invariant nature, i.e., directed toward colony survival.

The "perfection" of honeybee social organization is the result of Natural Selection through the millennia. The only Law within the society of honeybees is the Law of Natural Selection; the only behavior directed toward colony survival. The only Realities for honeybee society are Biological; determined by the genetic structure of individuals through Natural Selection.

Human society stands in stark contrast!! There are both Biological Laws and Political/Economic Realities in Human Society. The former determined by Natural Selection; the later by Man himself.

Observations on Man and Human Social Organization

Two aspects are united in the composition of Man; a body that is common to all other organisms, and reason/intellect/will which are unique to Man. The former regulated by instinct; the latter wholly under the control and development of the social context of the individual,
The social foundation of human society is fundamentally the moral character of it's citizens. This moral character is not instinctive but a learned behavior, and
It is the social context of the individual, a System of Education, that determines man's moral/social precepts and the nature of the social organization.

The social organization (political/economic structure in human terms) is variable and amorphous; freely chosen or imposed. Historically, the behavior of Man has been destructive to himself and others. A state of quasi-stability has been achieved not through the action of Natural Law but by the invention of Religion and Civil Law so as to regulate and control Human Behavior. Man is not, per se, a Social Organism. His behavior is entirely solipsistic as it is for all individuals of a non-social species. Human Society is, in fact, of recent occurrence; it's origins and causation unknown. It is in a stage of experimentation and development.
"If a man could be thoroughly persuaded...of this one principal, that we are all originally sprung from God..knowing yourself to be the son of God"....with an ability to understand through reason and intellect..."placed above restraint, compulsion, or hinderance, and wholly within our own control and in common with the gods". (Epictetus: Discourses and Euchiridion)

The Human Social Experiment may have three possible outcomes:
self-annihilation;
social stability via a homogenous, fixed, and invariant cast system through the combined and imposed action of Religious and Civil Law; or
a Social System created by the combined action of Intellect and Will completely independent and free of the constraints of Religious and Civil Law achieved, if it exists, by the self-discovery and development of a power and personality common to all Human Beings and "in common with the gods". A Democracy, with a strong and vibrant system of secular Public Education, will provide the environment for this Transformation; where all Citizens will have recognized their commonality in the recreation of their own and a societal consciousness.

"A man cannot free himself from the fear about the most essential matters if he does not know exactly the nature of the Universe, but attributes some slight element of truth to mythological tales...that happiness lies precisely in this exact discovery...we must pay attention to the immediate information provided by our internal feelings and external conditions; following common judgement when we have to deal with common sensations and our own judgement when we have to deal with the personal; judging every intuition of the moment in accordance with each of these conditions." (Epicurus)