3: Damaged societies – guilt bleeds into the nation – self-destruction of civilization

Now that you can recognize damage as being a behavior that is known to be problematic but done despite that, you can see it in others (and yourselves) very easily. A very good example of damage for me is that I tend to go to bed very late, much later than I should. This leads to a poor sleep cycle, and is problematic for my next day at work – knowing all this, I continue to do it anyway, though by understanding it is my damage, I am able to improve it slowly.

However, when too many people have heavy damage, the self-destruction of that internal guilt bleeds into their society. To make a parallel, if a person is cut and some bacteria get into the wound, they may be able to fight off the infection, no problem. But if a large number of bacteria enter the injury, the person may succumb to infection and eventually perish. So too does an overabundance of personal damage lead to the damage of a whole society or nation.

You can tell how damaged a society has become simply by looking at its policies, budgets, and politicians. Remembering that damage is deliberate self-sabotaging behaviour, then social damage would present as any political behavior (policies, budget decisions) that are not in the best interests of the society they are meant for.

For example, if a nation is spending too much to pander to an interest group, and running up a deficit and incurring significant national debt, this is a damaged policy. Or if policies are not being tabled to protect the nation's future (such as climate action policies), this shows a damaged society.

A final easy litmus test is the quality of leadership – if a nation elects a person who is manifestly unfit to hold public office, then the nation that elected them is clearly a broadly damaged one (again, we focus on cases of developed countries here with democratic systems – we will look later on developing nations and their circumstances.)

Even if you aren’t sure if a person has an infection (because you couldn’t count the number of bacteria that entered the cut), you could look for symptoms to confirm your suspicion. For example, the person might have redness and swelling, a fever, and be unable to use the finger (if that’s what they cut – usually people cut their fingers).

In the same way, the symptoms of a damaged society are quite clear – we see a growing income divide between rich and poor, a rising cost of living, a broad increase in mental health issues, and an increase in reliance on social safety nets like the justice system. Other metrics, like rising unemployment and reduced life expectancy, can be measured too, but you get the picture – if a society, which should, by all accounts, be improving as it matures in its democracy, is allowing its people to suffer, then this is a damaged society.

Is yours? And if so, is it a lost cause? No! Answers are provided in The Social Blueprint, and more about this particular issue of social damage can be found in the link below. Enjoy!

Episode 2: Are We Damaged? (TSB Chapter 2)