Social Ills And Social Solutions

Most problems arise because of other people and persist because they will not address the very problems they tolerated or even created.  The social side of human life can be both a source of reinforcement of relentless stupidity for non-rationalists, who bow to social conditioning and are lulled into a baseless sense of ideological contentment and apathy when others generally do not force them to do otherwise, and a source of extended strength and motivation for people who are rationalistic, introspective, and willing to form mutual bonds with others for the sake of unity in the truth.  Instead of just admitting this crucial fact, so many people contrive pathetic excuses for why people who are not rationalists are still rational, people who are hypocritical are moral peers of the consistent, and those who prioritize preferences are actually in the right.

Non-rationalists would usually rather blame anything from genetics to God to social conditioning for problems that literally anyone could recognize or stop contributing to if only they sincerely wanted to, but it is the people who are actually responsible for believing or doing such things who are the problem.  In fact, short of some hypothetical, unprovable mind control, things other than the minds of people themselves are never the real issue.  Social problems--not mere personally inconvenient social interactions or cultural factors that people dislike on emotionalistic grounds--only exist because more people are not rationalistic.  There would be no problems originating from society itself if everyone was rationalistic in their worldviews and actually sincere in living them out.

All the same, social ills often require social solutions.  Reason is of course the only indispensable part of every epistemological, abstract, or practical solution, but a community full of rational, self-aware individuals is sometimes a necessary part of escaping from the injustices or other problems that ironically come from human communities.  Social pains might need social healing, and one person might not be able to make changes outside of their own beliefs, priorities, and attitudes without the help of other people.  The only kind of community that truly could have significance is a group of rationalistic allies or perhaps even friends who are jointly concerned with truth above all else.  

It needs to be understood that people are still not worthy of admiration by default and, without full alignment with reason, are just haphazard slaves to selfishness and arbitrary beliefs which make them causes of flawed social systems.  From abusive relationships to large-scale cultural problems (which inevitably reduce down to people irrationalistically prioritizing assumptions or preferences over logical truths), interpersonal relationships might be an enormous part of resolving the problem, but it must never be forgotten that it is people and their false or unprovable ideas that are at the heart of all stupidity, injustice, and gratuitous harm.  People do not deserve kindness by default or deserve forgiveness at all; they need to be scrutinized as individuals and never given anything but firmness and encouragement to be rational and just.