The Three Pillars
As a writer, I often think about worldbuilding, about how societies are made. And I think I have figured out three pillars that support any society.
The first pillar I call Laws.
Laws tend to be made by a person or persons as part of their job, they are usually made public, and they usually include what punishment occurs if the law is broken.
The second pillar I call Norms.
Norms are not created by lawmakers, nor are they enforced in the same way as laws. To give an example, my culture has norms surrounding one's behavior when having to line up for something. And while someone who breaks those norms, like butting ahead of others, cant be charged with an actual crime, they definitely become known as someone who is very rude.
Norms are usually taught to children by parents, teachers, or other caregivers, but can be situational. what might be polite behavior in one circumstance might be regarded as rude in another.
The last pillar I call Assumptions. Assumptions are hard to describe, because the whole thing about assumptions is nobody talks about them directly. They are shadowy, but baked into a society so they are not only not questioned, few people even realize they exist at all.
To give a fanciful example, my society assumes humans don't have comic book style superpowers. If somehow that was to change, the society would have to reexamine not only that assumption, but put in laws and even norms to cover the new situation.
To give a more realistic example, the improvements in AI technology are already challenging some assumptions about what Intelligence and Consciousness even are, and if any definition of those two things shouldn't include an artificially made being.
And to give an example I deal with regularly, as a trans person, my existence challenges assumptions about gender, gender identity, gender roles, and what if any ideal version of family structure can include changes in any of those things.
I hope my culture can adapt to the challenge I represent, but there are forces that would rather force me to adapt to their ideals instead.
Which side will win out? Only time will tell . . .
End
If you liked this post, you can leave a comment and/or a kudos!
Click the Thumbs Up! button below to leave the author a kudos:
And please, remember to comment, too! Thanks.
Comments
Assumptions
I hadn’t thought about the third pillar in terms os “assumptions,” but that category does have some broad-based elements which strike me as helpful.
For example, in Medieval Europe there was a broad-based assumption that Christianity was the one, true religion, and that Kings ruled by divine right. By the time the American colonists declared independence, however, the “divine right” element was seen as nothing more than a rationalization for absolutism, and even the authority of Christianity was in doubt after the brutal religious wars of the seventeenth century.
Rather than rely specifically on Biblical authority for revolution, the colonists drew on Enlightenment principles and set out new foundational assumptions: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed (by their creator, to be sure), with inalienable rights, and that the very purpose of government is to secure those rights.
These assumptions are just that — assumptions. And because they are the types of assumptions that can’t be proven or disproven, Jefferson resorted to the slight-of-hand of declaring them “self-evident.” Both the Constitution and, more specifically, the Bill of Rights, were laws (to use your model) intended to operationalize the assumptions laid out in the Declaration of Independence. And, over the centuries, various norms have been established informally for the same purpose. For instance, the tradition of referring to the chief executive as “Mr. President” is a norm that was established under Washington, and there was a lot of bickering about it at the time. The stuffier Federalists thought he should be referred to as “His Majesty,” since he represented the sovereign people. The anti-federalists and folks who would later become the Democratic-Republicans rejected that notion completely, considering it inconsistent with the promise of the Declaration.
All of which is to say, I think your three pillars work pretty well as an analytical framework!
— Emma
glad that you found it interesting Emma
I was starting to think nobody was gonna say anything about this!
Different Societies
Have different frameworks but your three pillars are evident in all of them in some form or another. Even western societies modify them; for instance the French consider it quite normal for men to have mistresses, and the mistresses obviously concur!
That is an assumption which would be anathema in other countries with similar overall values, where such liaisons would be (correctly) labeled as adulterous and frowned upon, being one of the Ten Commandments in Judeo Christian scriptures.
Similarly Native American cultures actually esteem some measure of transsexualism as opposed to current attitudes in several western countries.
So your third pillar of Assumptions can be pretty fluid, while the first two are fairly consistent. Fairness/Justice are present in nearly all societies.
I have always thought that the infant USA was very lucky that the major European powers of the time were in conflict and turmoil, thus preventing them from giving the nascent nationalism in America their full attention. I also think that their imagination stalled somewhat in that they endowed their leader with close-to-kingly authority. It has worked well for about 250 years but is now falling apart as a result of the manipulation of the first pillar distorting the second pillar.
When it comes to transgender issues they may be suppressed for a time, and brutally, but the condition has been innate in us for thousands of years and will never be eliminated. When the wind changes we will still be there.