Every once in a while it is worth taking an objective look at society and examining its condition and behaviour. Society, like an individual, can exhibit signs of illness. Just as a doctor examines a patient to assess their health, we can examine society to identify its ailments. When a doctor examines a patient he looks for various signs and symptoms that will give him the clues to make a diagnosis. When several signs or symptoms are present together to form a particular disease, they are called a syndrome. Thus there are disease syndromes, depending on which disease, or which organ or organ systems are involved. Similarly, we can think of the “sick society syndrome” when we recognize that there are many problems that occur either simultaneously or consecutively to make society ill or uncomfortable. These issues can cause suffering to individuals, groups, or society as a whole. Just as a doctor diagnoses a patient based on their symptoms, we can identify the “sick society syndrome” by recognizing these societal ills.
When a person is ill, he will seek remedies to remove the illness because it causes suffering. When a society is sick it should also, similarly, seek remedies to remove the illness. However, unlike an individual who has control over their actions, society lacks such centralized control. This complexity often leads to a struggle between those causing societal ills and those seeking to rectify them. The perpetrators, often driven by self-interest, resist efforts to address the underlying issues, perpetuating the societal sickness. Drawing parallels between society and the human body reveals their contrasting approaches to self-preservation. While the body strives for homeostasis and well-being, society often exhibits tendencies towards decadence and self-destruction.
Our society today faces numerous challenges, and one of the most threatening is corruption. Like a pervasive cancer afflicting society today is corruption, causing a slow and painful demise. It It has fostered widespread laziness, rendering hard work and merit obsolete in our society’s value system. We have normalized and accepted these underhanded practices to such an extent that we celebrate them as divine blessings. This normalization, coupled with our overdependence on government jobs, threatens to paralyze if not outright destroy, our society in the near future.
While hard working individuals struggle to make ends meet, those with ill-gotten wealth lead comfortable lives without exerting any effort. Is that even fair? This stark contrast between the struggles of hardworking individuals and the comfortable lives of those with ill-gotten wealth highlights the fundamental inequities within our society.
A sick society fails to grasp that its prosperity is inextricably linked to the overall well-being of its members, especially those hard working ones. A sick society cannot comprehend that its overall health encompasses the entirety of its body.