why society needs successfull people please answer in detail because i have to add it in speech thank you
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Answer:
It’s like clockwork.
I say: “these societies are successful”. Instantly, a coterie of people appears and raises two objections. One: “that society is not successful! It’s not perfect!”. Two: “that society is not successful! No society can be!”.
Let’s unpack these for a minute, because it will teach us something interesting.
There are three ways to judge a thing. The first is the Platonic way: we compare it to an ideal. We do this with people — and it poisons our relationships. We do it with societies — and this is the leftist objection: no society lives up to my Platonic ideal, thus no society can be successful.
The second way is the Hegelian way: we compare a thing to it’s antithesis. We do this with ourselves — and it damages our sense of self-worth: I am not as good as them, they are the opposite of me, rich, pretty, handsome, famous, and so on. We do it with societies, too. This is the rightist objection: no society is as good as it could be if it was something else, a kingdom, a jungle, a family, some kind of antithesis of a society, therefore no society can be successful.
Do you see the illogic of both these positions? The leftist compares society to a Platonic ideal, and finds it ever wanting. The rightist compares society to a Hegelian antithesis, and finds it ever wanting. They are answering the questions “is a society perfect?” or “is a society better off being something else?”. But neither of these questions are relevant to “is a society successful?”. What is the right way to answer that question?
The third way to judge a thing is neither Platonic nor Hegelian but Aristotelian. Not to compare it to an ideal, or to an antithesis, but to understand if it is fully realizing itself. How are we to do that for a society? How can we say a society is successful at being a society? Not a jungle, an airplane, or an eclair, but a society.
We must look at reality to see if a thing is successful at being itself. Not at ideals or ideas or theories, which cannot tell us anything about that, but reality. But which reality should we look at? Can we say there is such a thing as objective reality, socially speaking? Sure we can. Some societies are indeed objectively more successful than others: we can say this with empirical confidence. Do not take my word for it: take the facts.
The facts are simple. Societies like Sweden, Canada, and Australia are more successful than societies like the US. At what? At being societies. No: not perfect. But more successful at what societies exist to do: deliver social goods, that allow people to enjoy genuinely prosperous lives. How do we know? Objective reality tells us so: in them, people live longer, enjoy their lives more, have greater opportunities, face fewer insecurities, and so on — the list is nearly endless, and you can edit it as you see fit.
The problem of the leftist and the rightist is that they are not concerned with objective reality. They are only concerned with subjective reality. Whose? Theirs. They compare society to their Platonic ideal, their Hegelian antithesis, remember. But that is not your ideal, or mine. What is lost in this foolish game of not understanding how to assess the success of a society at being a society? Not a jungle, a Platonic ideal, a castle in the sky, or a perfect panacea, remember? We lose sight of what a society exists to be.
No. A society is not an objective reality. It has no substance, no form. It is not a mountain or a river. It is more like a cloud. It is just agreements and norms and unsaid contracts. And yet. It is for precisely that reason that we can validate its success objectively. They must have a function, must they not? A society is not an objective reality, but the function, the telos, the purpose of a society most assuredly is.
The function of a society is expanding human potential. And that is what a society is successful at, or not: expanding or limiting human potential. A society is successful at being a society when it expands human potential.
What then is human potential? It’s very simple, isn’t it? My potential is to live a few decades, to contribute something to you, to feel that my life has had some meaning, and then die a good death. That is all, no more and no less. And yet, if I cannot even reach that potential — if I die young, because I have no healthcare, if I contribute nothing because I have no education, money, or time, then my life has failed. To what? To amount to one that is well lived.