Topic: Society, Matches 6 quotes.

The Purpose of Society

And what is the one constant element in all these relationships? Why does one person want to meet another person? What is the human purpose in society?

It is to exchange one good for another good more desired. Putting it on a personal basis, it is a matter of benefiting yourself by getting something you desire from another person who, at the same time, benefits himself by getting something that he desires from you. The object of such contacts is the peaceful exchange of benefits, mutual aid, cooperationfor each persons gain. The incalculable sum of all these meetings is human society, which is simply all the individual human actions that express the brotherhood of man.

To discuss the welfare and responsibilities of society as an abstract whole, as if it were like a bee swarm, is an oversimplification and a fantasy. The real human world is made by persons, not by societies. The only human development is the self-development of the individual person. There is no short cut!

But even today, many civilized persons—nice people, cultured, gentle, and kind, our friends and our neighbors, almost all of us at some time or another—have harbored the pagan belief that the sacrifice of the individual person serves a higher good. The superstition lingers in the false ideal of selflessness—which emphasizes conformity to the will-of-the-massas against the Christian virtues of self-reliance, self-improvement, self-faith, self-respect, self-discipline, and a recognition of ones duties as well as ones rights.

Source: Henry Grady Weaver
The Mainspring of Human Progress, p. 28-29

Topics: Society

The Role of Government

[The individual] is not just a cog in the wheel of the state. To be such I think is the greatest danger in the world today, but there are those who favor this. They think the state is our protector. It isn’t. The state, as a servant, is here to protect you in your work, on your farm and in your business, and to see that justice is administered; you have a right to that protection.

But the state has not anything that you do not give it.

The government has no financial means but that which you give it, and we give it to the government so that it will protect each individual in his right.

While emphasizing the worth of the individual, I wish to say that the individual in turn owes a duty to society. The world today is demanding that the employer consider his employee not merely as a part of a machine to make money, but as a living, sensitive being entitled to justice and right. It is equally obligatory upon the employee to recognize the employer as one who has equal privileges. It is the duty of the citizen to take this same attitude toward the leaders of his government, and the duty of the churchman to recognize the rights of those appointed to preside. [Secrets of a Happy Life, comp. Llewelyn R. McKay (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1967), p. 61]

Source: David O. McKay

Topics: Government; Rights; Society

In any free society, the conflict between social conformity and individual liberty is permanent, unresolvable, and necessary.

Source: Kathleen Norris

Topics: Society

A few days ago, the Christian world celebrated the Easter Day. Churches were filled with worshipers, and for the moment, as on the Christmas day, men’s thoughts were turned to God. The unfortunate thing is that the spirit of the day is soon forgotten, and other hopes and feelings take grip on the soul. People are not happy, for they miss the very things that make for the joy of living. The youth have an aversion for hard work; the mad thirst for pleasure has replaced our sacred home life, and the hate of man for man has brought the nations of the earth to the verge of war.

Yet there are forces and truths in the world that may yet be taken to awaken a finer conscientiousness in the hearts of mankind, and a more sacred belief in the righteousness and justice of the dreams and ideals which the Christian world knelt in honor of last Easter Day. We are told by St. Mark, the Evangelist, in words of exquisite beauty that:

When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had brought sweet spices that they might come and anoint him.

And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.

And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?

And when they looked they saw that the stone was rolled away; for it was very great.

And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted.

And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted; Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here.

For all the ills of government; for all the ills of humanity, in these words of St. Mark, there is fundamentally the panacea and the hope for humanity. How many millions of the Christian world have rolled away the stone from the sepulchre of Jesus Christ, our Lord, and know that he has risen as the true and living Christ, whose teachings can rejuvenate mankind? The power that rolls away the stone from the sepulchre and allows the risen Christ to come forth is contained in the words of the Master:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy might, mind and strength: and thy neighbor as thyself.

This is the way of mutuality and co-operation in human society. It is the Master’s way of doing away with hate and fear. It is only by the Christian world allowing the Christ to come forth to eternal life, that the civilization of the world can be saved.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1937

Topics: Christianity; Society

The Flight from Values

Strong, cohesive societies are based on even stronger belief systems sustained by the people as they make their daily fundamental political, economic, and cultural choices. Over the ages, people creating strong civilizations made such choices not because they felt they could be “proven” correct (science barely existed), but because they believed their choices were right and arose naturally from their common belief system. Today, however, we seem to have abandoned the idea that a common belief system is necessary at all—a result, in part, of a general decline in faith, and the moral strength derived from it. Instead, we like to think that all values are equal or “relevant”—that just about anything goes. This attitude has arisen not from any deeply honest confrontation with past or present values but from a flight from values altogether.

Source: William D. Gairdner
The Trouble with Canada

Topics: Morality; Society

Each town of early-day Utah was an ecclesiastical unit, with social and political tendencies. The ecclesiastical unit was based on the idea of individual power and self-development through religious principles. Each individual was responsible in this religious scheme to his God; each was independent to grow intellectually and morally in the sense that man is in the image of God. It is necessary to say this m order that we may understand the democracy of the town government of early-day Utah. Politically and socially, all rights were inherent in the people.

The power that held the people together was the religious feeling; and with this the economic interests common to all. In these social groups, the desire was to live and let live. The people were intensely practical; the physical conditions of the country made them so. They were compelled to apply their religious idealism to the immediate problems in hand.

The two ideals fundamental in traditional American thought are the ideal of individual freedom to compete unrestrictedly for the resources of the country, and the ideal of democracy, where the government is for all the people and by all the people. American democracy has always been based on free lands. Such ideals were always present in the colonizing of the valleys of Utah. But we must not forget that the “Mormon” colonists were always religious in their organization in form as well as in purpose.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1921

Topics: Freedom; Society

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