Do you ever despair at the apparent lack of regard for the "social contract" by so many?

Generally speaking, consideration for others is inversely proportional to the desperation of a given community. Think about how hard people have to work these days and still can't afford a decent place to live and food to eat. It makes perfect sense that someone who feels that the system is keeping them down, and wearing them to the bone won't be conscientious of how their actions will affect others. That mixed with Western ideals of extreme individualism, and a political climate that promotes divisiveness, it's truly a wonder that anyone has any consideration at all for their fellow countrymen.

My spouse and I talk about this often. A very obvious example is how rude (and recklessly dangerous) people are while driving. And myriad minor things out in public in general. No sense of community and a complete lack of consideration for others is the new normal. It got worse during and after the pandemic.

Our communities have been destroyed by this cult of hyper-individualism.

The shopping cart test for a community. Or seeing trash on the ground in public places, tells you alot about a area.

The golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Culture is learned from your peer group. Feeling a investmemt in your environment and a sense of ownership in it's condition change behavior. "This is our public park, so I won't littler", vs "This is their public park so I don't have to clean up".

I just want to live in a nice world, so I treat my world nice. Even when nobody is looking.

I don't know, but I just spent two days at an amusement park, so I'm in the sort of mood where I hate all people everywhere.

Like why the fuck are you just standing in the middle of a walkway? No, your group of 20 can't jump the line to catch up with the one 6 year old who's been alone for an hour. And double fuck everyone in the wave pool.

Paying taxes is one way of doing this, and man, people are really hellbent on trying to avoid that.

My husband and I discuss this regularly. The loss of the social contract.

It is so sad to see so many people respond with "not my responsibility." Why isn't it? If you want to be a part of society then it is your responsibility. Part of being "civilized" is the strongest helping the weakest and most vulnerable. Our truest measure as humans is how we treat those who need the most.

Bringing other people up to a dignified level increases your value, not decreases. It doesn't take away from you to let others have dignity and respect.

I don't know if it's actually real but I feel like since Corona and the Lockdowns many people are even nastier than before.

Unfortunately, there are lots of situations in life where being a piece of shit gets you rewards.

That person cutting you off in traffic, grabbing the last item on the shelf when you were there first, cutting in line, cheating on their taxes, stealing the job you were in line to get, along with the infinite examples of this in the business and political world.

The vast vast majority of assholes never face real consequences, and those consequences rarely outweigh the benefits they’ve enjoyed from being an asshole.

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I don't know that I'd call it 'apparent'.

My interactions with people in my life are, by and large, very decent. Social media amplifies the bad actors and makes the problematic things seem more widespread than they are, but in fact, it's just an algorithm grabbing the same content you've had your eyeballs on consistently and feeding you more of it. That creates the illusion that the problem you're hearing about is worse than it may be.

I will say, though, that I've become more of a fan of massive retaliation when I do run into people who lack basic politeness. If I'm in the gym and someone's playing music on speakerphone, I will work out near them and turn on the loudest metal track in my playlist at full volume. I keep a stick of gel deodorant in my car to use on the door handles of people who park rudely, and if someone is speaking to another person rudely in my presence I always say something. I try not to answer rudeness for rudeness to a person's face, because just asking "Why would you speak to someone that way?" is usually more effective for defusing people than escalating aggression. (But you get my drift)

As an American: "How will my choices affect the people around me in this moment?" Is almost comical to see.

Most assholes of my fellow Americans think "That nosey sonofabitch needs to get out of my way! I want to light fireworks off at 4am how dare he say I shouldn't! FREEDUMB!"

I used to live behind a gas station. 3am and almost every shithead going get gas had their subwoofers set to "shatter windows a mile away"

Everyone in this thread is ignoring all of the invisible things we do everyday as part of the social contract:

-Every time someone stops at a red light

-Every time we accept a piece of paper and in return render some service or surrender some treasure

-Every person waiting in line everywhere

-Every person who pays taxes

-Every time we go to the grocery store and just take it for granted that there will be food at the grocery store

I get it some a-hole cut you off in traffic. But we rely on our social contract to literally stay alive. It is a miracle and the pinnacle of human achievement. Maybe just say thank you?

For me its less of a contract and more of a built-in instinct. I feel physically ill if I think I unfairly annoy or hindering someone. I dont get why others feel like its only a contract, one which they can break if they want to. But they can and I have accepted it. So I dont despair, they are only human (and so am I).

What really gets me is the little stuff.

Major asshole stuff you can just write off as that person being a cunt by nature. But the dude on the bus playing tiktoks at full volume with 0 disregard probably isn't some irredeemable asshole, he's just a normal guy that doesn't give a fuck. Same with people that put their bags on seats or park in the way of traffic, or litter etc.

What's fascinating is reading about the social contract following WW2. It seems to line up that when that generation was in charge things like CEO pay wasn't off the charts. Then the next generation it started to go up. And now the 3rd generation it's completely bonkers.

Don't discount unions though. And don't forget that black people didn't get the social contract.

I think many people just have a fundamental misunderstanding that they are indeed a part of something larger.

Some dude was chopping wood at 11 pm for at least 45 minutes at this camp site I'm occupying. I'd think that as neglect for others hahaha.

I was literally just reading about social contract theory the other day, brushing up because it's been a while since my political philosophy coursework in undergrad.

I was thinking this is definitely something everyone should brush up on, because it seems to be something many of us have forgotten about.

We live in a society, together, and give up certain freedoms in exchange for stable lifestyles lived without fear.

I think people have forgotten about everyone's individual responsibility, their mandate, to uphold their part of this social contract. I think people have forgotten what shame is.

Great post.

You only feel bound by the social contract of the community / communities of which you actually feel part in your day to day. The one-two punch of neoliberal hyper-individualism (and the associated deliberate deconstruction of community) and online communities of special interests leads to people walking about a shared world with widely disparate senses of what their 'social contract' stipulates.

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People are appearently thinking it's normal now to have loud long phonecalls or screaming conversations in public transport, so... Yeah I've noticed.

It's about trust. In a low trust society people show no regard for the society as a whole and will only act in their own interest.

There are various reasons why people loose any sense of belonging to a society, but the outcomes are always the same and you will see what you are describing.

I wanna say today it's mainly caused by inequality and cronyism that's been skyrocketing over the last 50 years.

Inequality at the levels we're at destroys society from multiple angles, from making life completely unaffordable, to making dating harder to making different demographics blame each other for all the problems.

If you don't feel your investment into the society is reciprocated, then you feel no need to follow any of its rules or make any sacrifices for it.

Yes.

I remember years ago, meeting some Ayn Rand fans, and many of us who knew them considered them deluded and selfish. I remember the despair I felt when drump’s election proved that the deluded and selfish had increased and risen. And then the pandemic shone a spotlight on just how many had become proud of their delusion and selfishness. And yes, I sometimes get very depressed about this, but find ways to see the good and positive, and continue to hope.

Not enough people were taught that they should treat other people how they, themselves, would like to be treated.

Well, it’s that or they just have zero self-respect.

Answering the title: yes. All the fucking time.

One of the little things that annoy me to hell and back is the "lack of decency" from marketing companies that robocall you nonstop. Knowing that someone is profitting off my (and millions') misery makes it even more infuriating.

Then there's the actually small, dumb stuff that people also insist, like refusing to get out of the way and thinking -you- are wrong for wanting to get past them. In a fucking public space that their fat ass is almost fully blocking.

It's the prime source of despair for me at work, as a custodian. Be it staff, clients, or coworkers - being a lazy selfish piece of shit feels pretty common.

I keep in mind that observation bias is a thing and I can't remember the people around me who are constantly following it.

Many years ago I was walking out of Port Authority and a women, clearly mentally ill, ran up to me and wacked me in the back. There is zero doubt that I have passed well over 10k people in that area in my life. I only remember 1 of them because of what she did 1 time to me.

Yes. Quite often, sadly. Usually when I'm driving, but also when I see someone blatantly littering in front of a perfectly good trash can or absent-mindedly blocking an aisle at the grocery store.

Integrity is no longer valued in our society because it's an intangible virtue that you can't directly benefit from, so many people toss out that decorum for marginal gains. The reason I throw my trash away in a trash can is because I respect the social contract and I don't want to leave a mess for someone else to have to clean (even if it might be their job to clean it) not because I'm afraid of being judged or confronted by others, which I think is the only thing keeping most people on the right side of the equation these days.

The Shopping Cart Theory is a fantastic way to determine if you are dealing with somebody who doesn't respect the social contract, and indeed, that attitude transcends mere niceties and seeps into their personality - laziness, selfishness, and a general lack of respect for other people's time and property.

Despair? Not really. Though before COVID, people seemed generally okay, if annoying to be around. Now we just know they're assholes. But I more shrug my shoulders at it as opposed to 'despair' over it.

Yep constantly! perfect example yesterday. Was waiting in line for ice cream. Some young girls ahead of me in line were talking amongst themselves. Worker tries to ask them what they want twice. The girls were completely oblivious to her or seemingly to the fact they were in line. I felt this worker's pain but supported her reaction of rolling her eyes and then quickly proceeding to the next customer.

We obviously all have lapses in awareness but yeah it does sort of feel like it's so common it's endemic and maybe on the rise. Living in a touristy area accounts for some of it but even in the off season it's crazy common here.

I think in the US at least, people increasingly have accepted the notion that it's everyone for themselves, and any sense of "us together" is absent. And when you look at our national values and what sort of policy actually gets discussed and passed, it can be difficult to disagree with that idea. We have millions of Republicans who would do anything for Trump, but won't do the most minor thing to help their fellow citizens for example. We have a government that helps businesses, but won't help regular people.

And this sort of mentality is widespread throughout society. It gives people the idea of "You don't care about me, so why should I care about you?" In a moral vacuum, maybe the effect wouldn't be so pronounced, but in reality, it becomes an engine of apathy which gradually consumes more and more of the social consciousness and destroys the threads which hold that social contract together.

I'm visiting Niagara Falls, which is a tourist area obviously, and you can tell who the Americans are because they're happy to shove you out of the way to get a better look. Also, last night, an already loud motorcycle was driving down the road with its music blasting so loud, I thought I was in the Hard Rock Cafe down the street. Of course, American plate.

I'm despair at the lack of regard for the social contract for my own people in specific. I go out of my way to not annoy people.

Idk, at least locally i feel like the regard for the social contract has only grown with time, sure there's the odd teenager who doesn't realize headphones exist but they're stupid teenagers and everyone hates them.

It's definitely not a new phenomenon, but exacerbated by the media and COVID-19 just seemed to bring out the very worst in the worst people. Witnessed selfish brats in society my whole life, and I wish I could say it's improved but it hasn't. People forget we live in a society and should work together.

Can't say for sure if there's an increase in this behavior or I'm just getting cranky with old age. Personally, I try to focus on the 999 people NOT being a rude douche

I recognize what you're saying. I've accepted it to some degree but I don't like it. I think it also comes down to different views, morals and values. It's easy to look at a person that misbehaves according to your own values and feel disappointed by them. One thing to remember is that they have their own views about what's right and wrong and your own views aren't necessarily the right ones.

I feel the same way about "acting professional".

It's definitely gotten worse due to the dispersion of our social groups.

It used to be that we would interact with the same people for a large chunk of our lives. The guy you shoulder checked on the path was your dad's coworker etc. The social contract was a lot more reciprocal.

Now, we bounce around the city/country/world, almost on a whim. This breaks alot of the connections that reinforced the social contract.

In scientific terms, the Nash equilibrium has changed. The social contract is close to a classic prisoner dilemma situation. It used to be iterative, and so favour a "tit for tat" response. It is now closer to multiple random individual interactions. This favours "defection" more, since the other person will never get a chance to respond.

I feel like I run into microcosms of this in a few online games.

Worlds like Sea of Thieves, The Division's dark zone, and Stalcraft, are built with the idea that "anything goes" - players exist in the same world, with no rule to prevent them killing each other to steal their possessions - and even some decent rewards for doing so.

I actually mostly enjoy playing those games for all the times people don't do those things. I don't despair the moments that betrayal does end up happening - mostly, I just find it wonderous and satisfying anytime we manage to dismiss that possibility and treat each other peacefully.

This could be a poor effort to correlate my interests, but one thing I think affects this issue in places like America is cars. You don't see 20 people out on the street. You see 20 cars on the street. Tinted windows, faceless metal grill. A lot of people have been burned by one poor experience with neighbors taking sidewalks or transit, and so they want to stay isolated in their own protected cabins.

I think the world really relies on chance interactions between strangers, for both parties to learn something about each other and the world - often leading people to "care more" and develop more of that social contract. The trick is, most people DO follow a social contract, but it might only be for the individuals they're familiar with and that they feel similar to. The internet has unfortunately had its ill effects too - people can choose to stay in spheres where people specifically agree with their worldview, and won't ever run into "randomized neighbors" the same way as they would walking down the street.

When ever I see a traffic light intersection and seeing everyone actually obey the lights, I just think: Wow, such civility, such orderly people patiently waiting for the light to...

BANG The sound of a cars crashing so hard it almost sounded like an explosion.

Me, after being so bewildered at what just happened: Um yea except for that... actually nvm about the civility, maybe I was being too optimistic

I doubt that's a new thing honestly. I've always been encountering people who think only of themselves.

But also, a part of this social contract should be things like "nobody's perfect" and "everyone makes mistakes". That goes with your part together too, sometimes we don't think something through and may come ofd as selfish or ignorant. But that's also normal if it just happens randomly sometimes and it's not too much of a pattern.

I think these days we tend to demand perfection too much, and write someone off way too quickly.

My biggest aggravation are people who cut into entry lanes whilst in traffic just to get maybe ten cars ahead because their time is soooo much more important than anyone else's.

I had a much longer list of other things that I had typed out, but I cut it out. I don't want to be putting more negative out into the world than needed.

So yes, despair is constant, seeing people have so little regard for their fellow human beings. We're all sharing this world, we're all trying to exist. Though that's not to say it's all bad, there's a lot of very selfless things people do every day too. It's easier to see the negatives, but there's definitely good out there too.

I was on the subway, standing, recently when an elderly man got on board. I'd guess he was in his 70s. Had a crutch under his arm. Had one or a few small bruises on his face. He looked frail. No one with a seat made any effort to offer him their seat. He stayed right near the doorway of the subway, and I thought "oh, maybe he's just going one stop." He wasn't. He just didn't expect anyone to vacate a seat for him.

I remember the subway before personal music players, and now 'smartphones' were ubiquitous. From what I can see, common courtesy has fallen sharply with the rise of 'smartphones' (and the concomitant "I'm walking around completely oblivious to my surroundings and focused on what's on the 4 inch screen 4 inches from my face")

I feel we have been taught to ignore the social contract and compete with each other for survival instead by the increasingly capitalist structures among us.

Also, in most countries a smaller proportion of the population is 'bought in'. Home ownership is way down. A lot of days, I kind of passively hope for collapse because the status quo is shitty. So there's little incentive to uphold the social contract for me because there's little hope it will result in a good outcome for me.

And this makes perfect sense and is predicted. As wealth inequality rises, social contract breaks down

The reason we are seeing a version of Idiocracy in action is due partly to us no longer being able to keep up with the excess of information and partly to mindless inhibition of education.

First, there is a lot of information to cram into the heads of children and there needs to be a reform and streamlining of education in general, if we are to keep up with our status of development. Unfortunately our civilization as a whole has reached a centurial gap between its forefront and its general body. Most of our capitals, which are supposed to be shining beacons of our achievements, are instead living museums of our evolution. The outer husks are nothing more than tribal huts made of mud, barely rediscovering the wheel and fire.

Second, cuts are being made heavily and exhaustingly poor in the department of education on a global scale more or less, and the focus on forefront performance causes everything else to degrade rapidly. Whether cultural, religious, economical or plain idiotic, restrictions are being added one after the other and create a vacuum that simply disrupt the well being of our society.

Education needs to be comprehensive in order to be effective in every facet available. Ours currently isn't.

It's a bit of confirmation bias. Once something "big" happens to you, you start seeing little things that you'd before just write off.

But a part of it is the increase in homeless people. Many of them, thanks to mental illness and drug addiction, can't follow a social contract.

Of course, naturally, they get left on the street where they ruin everyone else's day instead of being forced into an area where they can exhaust themselves out, and get their illnesses treated.

Because that would cost too much money, of course, as if letting those people lose their grip on reality and break shit doesn't already cost money.

Yes, but from a slightly different viewpoint. Namely, people are so disenfranchised from their society on average that the idea of a social "contract" makes no sense. People are not at all represented by "their" governments, and in their righteous anger they conflate the oppression by governments with that of their people.

If you put on a crown and shout that you're better than me, I'm not going to respect your authority by default. You need to give a reason to do so, such as protections, rights, privileges, opportunities, camaraderie, etc.—or the implied or explicit threat of violence against those who disobey the law, as is the current setup. Right now, the only thing that my government does for me is wage wars in foreign lands, building ill will and corpse piles on my behalf. For many people, their government harasses them or just wants them straight-up dead.

I think that many people confuse the ill-will of governments with the avarice of their ordinary citizens [1]. It is, at best, tied to the apathy of their citizens, whom have themselves been relentlessly beaten into understandable submission.

The point I'm making is this: if people are already out to destroy you, what good is the social contract to you? Fuck them. This is the attitude that drives people not to care for others.

Now this lack of care for others is not my viewpoint! I do separate the actions of the state from the people they "represent" as much as is possible [2]. However, I'm in a position of relative comfort and privilege. I have the energy to take a fraction of a second and cool off when I start to see myself blaming humanity for things. Most people don't.

Lastly, in regards to situational awareness and common courtesy specifically...I really had to learn that, and I'm not the only one. "Do unto others as you would want done unto you" doesn't really work for me because I generally want different things than others. I have difficulties reading social cues. Even as an adult, I have to go far beyond "Do unto others..." to suss out what the right course of action is, because I typically would want something else or nothing to happen. Situational awareness and common courtesy are not inherently obvious or intuitive, and I think we do a disservice to ourselves by pretending that we don't generally learn courtesy from others.

[1] In areas where street justice is a thing, it is not at all uncommon for the public to side with non-state bullies in conducting oppression, although usually still with tacit state support.

[2] Patriots and ultranationalists do exist unfortunately. Non-state ultranationalists need to be taken to task along with their state-sponsored brethren.

Absolutely,.

I just went to Japan and Korea, and seeing the difference between there and here (US) is jarring. You’d almost have to go there and spend some time immersed in it to pick up on the many ways they cooperate and help each other - from the government, to safety regulations and equipment, to the day-to-day interactions. We could really learn something from them.

All the time. There are things many people do which cause me (and others) physical pain because of a medical condition. They don't mean to cause me harm, but because they have a mental model of everyone sharing similar abilities as themselves, it simply doesn't occur to them that the one small thing they're doing has negative consequences for others. It's a monkeysphere thing, it's nobody's fault.

I get past it by remembering that I am also incapable of remembering everyone's needs at all times. I'm sure there are many things I have done which seemed completely mundane at the time, but affected someone else negatively. No matter how hard I tried.

The people who still do things like casually block the entire sidewalk with a heavy rental e-bike still pisses me off. But, not for as long as it used to. And if it's something I can fix for someone else who can't, I'll try to do that too.

I also try hard to ensure I actively remember other people's needs where I can. If I can create less suffering, I think that's a good thing to try for.

This is increasingly a problem in my country (New Zealand) too, its not just the USA. It seems to be mostly a Western world thing. Going to Japan and places like that where the social contract is still upheld is very refreshing

The nihilistic energy of the early 2020s isn’t new but it has been front and center for awhile. I’m hoping it fades.

I'm not witnessing this rampant disregard for the social contract. Most people pay their taxes, don't assault others, follow traffic laws, etc.

I guess there are examples like for example the mask thing during the pandemic. But we can have different opinions on what constitutes the social contract.

Maybe I believe I should only wear a mask when I'm sick. If I follow that protocol, in my mind I am still following the rules of the social contract. Someone who believes you should wear a mask 100% of the time may feel I am not following the social contract.

Some people would agree with the first and some with the second and others with something entirely different.

The real litmus test for me is the laws. The social contract isn't simply a morality / ethics thing. It's an agreement "you don't get in my way and I won't get in yours" and that's pretty much what has sparked our common laws.

I wish more people would engage with this at the cinema

We live in a society - George Costanza

You just described c/antiwork

Common courtesy and following the rules and situational awareness are not the same thing as "how will my choices affect the people around men in this moment."

Sure, but the rules are usually made by powerful people to support their power. And we follow them to avoid losing our jobs and becoming homeless.

We live in a mercenary society, and if you reject that you just become homeless in a mercenary society.

There might be some jobs that pay a living wage and are 100% socially positive, but there are not enough of them for most people to live their lives by social contract.

We live by corporate contract, or else we are homeless.

the notion that we all make minor sacrifices in our daily interactions in service of a “greater good” for everyone.

That's a talking point abusers and their supporters commonly use to convince victims to accept abuse and to continue to suffering.

No just society expects you to subordinate your unailenable right to defend yourself from violence, for example, but many states do, and they can and will arrest and imprison abuse victims for fighting back on those grounds.

Anyone who tells you to make sacrifices for the greater good is being immoral and should be ignored.

Greater goods do not require sacrifices.

A. That’s not what the social contract is, and 2. There is no social contract.

I think a large number of people grow up to be inconsiderate and just aren't educated with basic manners. I see people littering the street, playing loud music at night which may disturb others etc.

But if you speak of a "greater good" then the problem is a lot of people don't understand or just fail to agree upon what that means. I spoke to someone about my work with open source and free software and the person just said "oh, but that's just to make yourself look good", as if its some sort of check list that "look I'm charitable" and not an objectively better choice in most situations.

At that point I'd be like why the fuck would I want this selfish thick skulled ass to have anything good? And ironically become selfish.