Thursday, September 06, 2012

Compulsion Vs Cooperation

One of the big issues we as humans have in life is the line between compulsion and cooperation. We almost know instinctively that we must cooperate or die. Yet when we try to compel someone to cooperate with us we get rebellion or something worse. Still it seems that in every generation there are those who will say that the only way to achieve cooperation is to compel people to cooperate! It seems to me that cooperation is the exact opposite of compulsion and that if one tries to obtain cooperation by force (which is the definition of compulsion) then cooperation disappears.
The question remains though if we know that cooperation is necessary to maintain society how do we obtain the cooperation? The answer to that is persuasion. Persuasion that the person being asked to do something will benefit from that which he is being asked to do.
Now it is possible to persuade people that if they steal from 'the rich' it will be to their benefit. But since theft eventually breaks down societal cooperation it does not benefit you to listen to those who would convince you that when a group of people does a thing it is more moral than when an individual does a thing.
© 2012 Vic Jones

Search This Blog