I recently read that life expectancy would have gone down for the human race had it not been for medical technology. We are improving the technology and institutions to help us in our lives, but as a race we have failed to improve the actual quality of our lives. Society,(In this essay "society" refers to modern Western\Eastern cultures) in some of its forms, is a parasite that leaches off the livelihoods of its individual members. It improves living standards, but the individual human becomes less and less capable of true independence or free thought. To help clarify this, one needs to examine why society began, what its functions are, and its individual components. Only then will the underlying point be evident -- that while society tries to help the many, it hurts the individual.

Society as we know it began after the agricultural revolution. The division of labor began to increase certain skills in an individual at the expense of other skills. After only several hundred years the early farmers were easily conquered by non-agricultural peoples -- the charioteers and nomads. These pacifists had much less individual strength, knowledge, or life expectancy than their conquerors, despite the agriculturists ability to support a larger population and later a written language. In the Industrial Revolution, millenia later, humanity could support a much larger population, but once again this came at the cost of individual skill and health. Improved technology would destroy tailors and blacksmiths, churning out instead burger flippers and cashiers. New jobs required less thought and less physical labor. The invention of the television would cut the vocabulary of the average adult by over half as literature became less popular. After whole-heartedly adopting Clausewitz's On War, ("War is a continuation of politics by other means") humanity would invent "Total War". World War I and II and the coming of the Nuclear Age separated man irrevocably from nature and, for the first time in Earth's history, a single race could choose to destroy the ecosystem in which it lived. Increasingly, individuals began to accept the ethics and advancements of society with little or no thought as to the eventual effects these changes may effect on their own livelihood.

Society is greater than the sum of its individual parts. It has several self regulating mechanisms meant to ensure its effectiveness for the individual, but these same mechanisms are what make all societies static. The first is government, or political leadership, which is a powerful force, but most other advanced mammals and primates have some means of governing themselves, which infers that government does not form human society. If government were purely political or logical , it would have very little impact on society. Government's relations with education and religions are its most important cultural\societal aspects, for these are what influence the minds of its members.

Education is the second device that society uses to protect itself. Much of what is taught to children may be only guesses, and it is the teaching of these theories that increases the time needed to disprove them, for humanity takes much on faith. It took Western culture 1500 years to figure out that Aristotle's theory of heavier objects falling faster was wrong. It was disproved in a test that took all of five minutes. Religion takes full advantage of the human strength\weakness "faith". Though it is a strong force for morality and charity, this institution is perhaps the most powerful force society has of maintaining the status quo. Religion cannot be easily disproved or argued with because of its basis in faith as opposed to logic. Religion is also one of the few forces capable of suppressing natural human behavioral patterns, such as lust, anger, and many of the "baser" emotions. Homo Sapiens's ability to think in the abstract and have religion are uniquely human.

Technology is the final force, one is which becoming more and more powerful as we advance into the "information age". Technology can be very beneficial, by removing much of the need for manual labor. It also can be harmful, albeit subtley. The previously mentioned decreasing literacy ability may be the result of the invention of the television. Long ago, the domestication of animals caused the loss of the skills of a hunter: eyesight, memory, and quick reactions. More recently, huge farming equipment increases the amount of food available, but the move away from the farms has resulted in a decreasingly poor state of health due to the decreased physical labor. Over thousands of years, humanity has moved away from the person as an individual and towards the person as a component of his society. Despite increased efficiency as a whole, this creates several problems. The first is that society draws huge amounts of labor from one sector and give disproportionately small rewards for that labor. This has created a rigid caste system, even in the most liberal of societies. A second problem is the decreasing physical well being of its members. Man is no longer the physical equal of the other species he once was. Instinct is dying, with nothing to take its place. Another problem is the decreased decision making skill of the individual. People act less and less decisively as they move towards a "group mind concept".

Society cannot forever continue to expand as it has in years past. Nuclear weapons have destroyed the massive conquering war, a favorite means of spreading ideas. Specialization and the assembly line can only go so far. People must retain more of their skills, for humans are multifaceted. A concentrated shift must be made to create jobs that are more than manning the assembly lines or flipping the burgers. Education has to move away from maintaining the status quo and concentrate on actually teaching its pupils. Education is a force that can be the most powerful force in our lives. It should be the first priority of every government. If society does not concentrate on helping the individual -- upon helping those who created it and give it substance -- the devolution will play itself out as society collapses under its own weight.