In paternalism …between individual liberty and authoritative social control. Questions concerning paternalism also may include both the claims of individual rights and social protections and the legal and socially legitimated means of satisfying those claims. The discursive use of the term paternalism is almost exclusively negative, employed to diminish specific policies or… Read More
persuasion
In persuasion …that, without some degree of social control and mutual accommodation such as that obtained through persuasion, the human community becomes disordered. In this way, persuasion gains moral acceptability when the alternatives are considered. To paraphrase Winston Churchill’s evaluation of democracy as a form of government, persuasion is the worst method… Read More
political systems
In political system: Cities …functioning as important agencies of social control; earlier systems of rule by the tribal chieftains and the simple forms of communal leadership gave way to kingships endowed with magical powers and important religious functions; and specialized functionaries in the royal courts became responsible for supervising new kinds of governmental activity.… Read More
population control
In population: Malthus and his successors …the perfection of a human society free of coercive restraints was a mirage, because the capacity for the threat of population growth would always be present. In this, Malthus echoed the much earlier arguments of Robert Wallace in his Various Prospects of Mankind, Nature, and Providence (1761), which posited that… Read More
propaganda
In propaganda: Democratic control of propaganda …have attempted a variety of social controls over propaganda. In an ideal democracy, everyone would be free to make propaganda and free to oppose propaganda habitually through peaceful counterpropaganda. The democratic ideal assumes that, if a variety of propagandists are free to compete continuously and publicly, the ideas best for… Read More
cultures
Australian Aboriginal
In Australian Aboriginal peoples: Leadership and social control Aboriginal people had no chiefs or other centralized institutions of social or political control. In various measures, Aboriginal societies exhibited both hierarchical and egalitarian tendencies, but they were classless; an egalitarian ethos predominated, the subordinate status of women notwithstanding. However, there is evidence… Read More
Confucianism
In Confucianism: The historical context The appeal to cultural values and social norms for the maintenance of interstate as well as domestic order was predicated on a shared political vision, namely, that authority lies in universal kingship, heavily invested with ethical and religious power by the “mandate of heaven” (tianming), and that social… Read More
In covenant: Nature and significance …in those contexts in which social control was either inadequate or nonexistent. Though ancient pre-Greek civilizations apparently never developed a descriptive theory of covenants, analysis of covenant forms and the ancient use of language yields a definition that essentially is the same as that found in modern law. It is… Read More
custom and law development
In culture: Custom and law …have means of self-regulation and control in order to persist and function. In human society these means are numerous and varied. The kinship organization specifies reciprocal and correlative rights, duties, and obligations of one class of relatives to another. Codes of ethics govern the relationship of the individual to the… Read More
In primitive culture: Nomadic societies …there is no system of coercive authority. Some persons may, by their wisdom, physical ability, and so on, rise to positions of leadership in some particular endeavour, such as a raiding party or a hunt. But these are temporary and variable positions, not posts or offices within a hierarchical structure.… Read More
education
In teaching: The doctrine of in loco parentis …teachers take some of the responsibility and some of the authority of the parents. The exact extent and nature of this responsibility and power vary from one society to another and from one school system to another. This is spelled out to some extent in the law, but much of… Read More
sexuality
In human sexual activity: Social control of sexual activity Societies differ remarkably in what they consider socially desirable and undesirable in terms of sexual activity and consequently differ in what they attempt to prevent or promote. There appear, however, to be four basic sexual controls in the majority of… Read More
social structure
In social structure: Structure and social organization …groups, although constituted by the social activities of individuals, are not a direct result of the wishes and intentions of the individual members. The notion of social structure implies, in other words, that human beings are not completely free and autonomous in their choices and actions but are instead constrained… Read More
taboo
In taboo …to the general system of social control. Sigmund Freud provided perhaps the most ingenious explanation for the apparently irrational nature of taboos, positing that they were generated by ambivalent social attitudes and in effect represent forbidden actions for which there nevertheless exists a strong unconscious inclination. He directly applied this… Read More
