Forever Skills

12Order

Whether we seek consensus or mould consensus, the need for social order will remain.

In Lord of the Flies, William Golding speculated what would happen if society degenerated into childish unregulated anarchy. Spoiler alert: Piggy gets killed in a frenetic unleashing of emotion and groupthink.

In fact many modern dystopian novels explore the breakdown of society as we know it. Usually, the downtrodden win and the evil overlords get their comeuppance (but we suspect this is probably a function of what sells books and movie tickets).

In reality, every revolution, whether social, commercial or psychological, is almost immediately followed by an establishment of new rules and acceptable behaviours. Order never truly goes away; it simply morphs into the New Order.

Throughout history, our societies and communities have been held together by a collection of loose and more formal agreements that are designed, at least in part, to prevent us from taking advantage of, stealing from, injuring and even killing each other.

Hardly surprising, given that society is made up of a complex series of interdependent people, places and processes. We have always had to navigate and balance the often conflicting demands for individual freedoms and shared safety and security. A binary system that is only exaggerated by our current two party–dominated system of government.

The truth is, the predominance of one negates the other, and, as both have their virtues, the debate rages on.

This means ...