Fallen Societies from Failure of Rulers

What is social stability? According to ReversoDictionary it’s, “living or preferring to live in a community rather than alone”. In Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, stability means much more than that. In the World State the government takes full control of every aspect of the people’s lives; even going as far as to brainwash the community into being content with their lives. Through genetic engineering people are mass produced and then conditioned into certain castes that they’re forced into for the rest of their short lives. Technology has been made to eliminate all suffering and a widely used, if not overused, drug called Soma has been created to diminish any pain. Individuality is stolen from the people of the World State and they have no way of understanding their dissatisfaction because the government has manipulated their entire existence. Conditioning, drugs, and promiscuity aren 't the only things in life a person will need to feel satisfied; we as human will always yearn for more, which is why going as far as the World State did for social stability is wrong.

“America’s ‘Oh Sh*t!’ Moment”, written by Niall Ferguson, a historian who teaches at Harvard University, in 2011, explores why civilizations collapse, and how America can avoid this. He does not focus only on America, but many civilizations in the past that have collapsed. Niall Ferguson is the author of Civilization: The West and The Rest. The article is creatively and cleverly written using the metaphor of modern technology to describe the way in which the societal collapse occurs. This shows that the article was written for adults who are highly educated and understand and relate to technology. The article discusses the possibilities of what complete collapse would look like in American society. I believe the author successfully

Jared Diamond is a world renowned scientist, author, Pulitzer Prize winner, and currently a geography professor at UCLA. Of his six books published, we will be looking at the last chapter of his fourth book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. In this book Diamond utilizes the comparative method to find resemblance in past societal collapses with our current society. In the chapter entitled, "The World as Polder: What Does it Mean to Us Today," Diamond points out that there are indeed many parallels between past and present societies and that our modern day society is currently on a path of self destruction , through examples such as globalization and the interdependency of each country.

There was, at that time, social chaos in many countries, and, left to themselves, these children found a kind of elemental cohesion in their viciousness.

Imagine a world where there were no problems, and everyone is happy. Few societies have not even been close to being this perfect. Great societies fail due to weak security systems, poverty, and inequality. The failed societies of Ancient Rome, Africa, and the dystopian novel Divergent by Veronica Roth, are all examples of great societies failing because of these three reasons.

In “The end s of the world as we know them” article Jared Diamond looks at the collapse of several historical societies and the factors that caused their collapse. The factors are:

Do most people wish to be followers? This is a question that has puzzled many sociologists when trying to understand one's social condition. Throughout history, civilised societies have been governed by sovereign powers that use a diverse set of rules and laws to maintain societal order and domination. Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher, stated that laws were made to refrain individuals from pursuing their evil objectives. Thus without them, chaos is sure to be a consequence of such behaviour. Countries that lack governmental control experience high crimes rates because there is no one to monitor individual behaviour and offer punishment to those who transgress societal norms. Likewise, when state leaders misuse their power, people tend to fall back to their more animalistic and violent tendencies. In the short stories, “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, and “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the leaders manipulate their societies through the power their citizens or villagers allow them to have which creates a draconian dystopia in which individual autonomy and choice is restricted. This is demonstrated through the use of characterization and through the denouement.

The movie Divergent, in which I have picked as my topic, is set in a futuristic, dystopian world where society is divided into five factions based on certain conformity to specific attributes. The factions include Abnegation (the selfless), Amity (the peaceful), Candor (the honest), Erudite (the intellectual), and Dauntless (the brave). Those who do not belong to a faction do not have status nor do they have any privileges, and they are left to fend for themselves. This system is put in place to maintain balance and order amongst the people. Children are born into the faction of their parents, but take a psychological aptitude test to determine what group they best fit into once they turn 16. They can, however, go against

I think that the privative societies had a steady thing going for them back in the 1200-1500. Let me explain I believe that economic and political power should coincide, because I believe that one can not work without the other. Let me explain you use politics to establish treaties or in this case packs like the Native Americans from here you can then establish trade routes with other coexisting tribes or colonies. This then creates a better economy and politics for later expansion. So like I said a good country can ownly become a great country if the politics and economy work

Living in modern societies, it can be difficult to decipher what person would be like in a natural state; without civilizations, rules, and punishments for misbehavior. Does society corrupt our morals or does it keep us civil? The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that people are inherently good. Without civilizations, humans are good beings with empathy, kindness, and well-developed morals. However, he believed that societies corrupt our morals and are what make the change in us to become “evil” or “bad”. The author of the novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding, however, believed that in a primitive environment, humans are evil. Without a society watching over us, humans will become barbaric brutes.

The word “collapse” has a number of connotations associated with it. Some view it exclusively the degradation of societies of the highest order. Others see it as the complete disintegration of economic prospects and commerce. Some even think of it political ruin with the demise of states and ruling factions that maintain order. The most general definition for collapse can includes elements from these three viewpoints. American anthropologist and historian Joseph A. Tainter is best known for his writings on societal collapses. In 1988 he published his most widely recognized work, The Collapse of Complex Societies.

What exactly causes a teenager to rebel? This question is asked by millions of parents across the nation. Adolescents are in the formal operational thought stage. Parents must realize that their teenage children will have the desire to make their own decisions and challenge any inconsistent discipline. In the broadcast video, Teens: What makes them tick, when questioned why they choose to rebel, the majority of teenagers had one main reason, they are pulling away from their parents. With authoritarian parents, teenagers feel trapped and unloved. These parents are constantly nagging, lecturing and focusing on the negative aspects along with being punitive. The teenager begins to

    The founders of America believed that a popular government and its laws necessarily rested upon an underlying moral order that preceded both the state and man-made law. They referred to this transcendent moral order in the Declaration of Independence as "self evident truths" and "the laws of nature and of nature's god" (Barr pg. 211). For a republic to work, the founders thought, the people had to internally guided by commonly shared moral values. The founders viewed themselves as launching a great experiment: Could a free people retain a moral culture that would promote the self-discipline and virtues needed to restrain corruption? "We are still, in many ways, 'the shining city on the

The way Society is going now is controlled by a ‘few’ who have control of vast resources for directing and manipulating the masses. And they have violent oppression of those who will not submit to their structured system of control as a back up resource.

Why Nations Fail takes an in depth look into why some countries flourish and become rich powerful nations while other countries are left in or reduced to poverty. Throughout this book review I will discuss major arguments and theories used by the authors and how they directly impact international development, keeping in mind that nations are only as strong as their political and economical systems.