Nestor's Cola

It’s been a while since I played (and reviewed) a japanese game. There are several reasons for this hiatus. The one that sticks out most visibly is minori, a notably racist, isolationist, and terminally xenophobic game maker from Jolly ‘ole Japan. See, refer back to my posts on Equality Now. It can be easily concluded that minori are chafing under the yoke that their own government placed on them by blaming foreigners. Their response at first was to block foreign IP from their site. Another response was to post a thinly veiled message on their redirect page, essentially boiling down to “unless you are japanese living in japan, we don’t want you buying our games, participating in our activities, or even visiting our website.” Their solution? MOVE TO JAPAN. Literally, it says that right there on their website. “You want to play our games? Move to japan. We won’t have a problem with that.” Riiiight. I’m going to move overseas to play a game. I’ll get right on that.

I’ve heard some interesting defense in favor of minori. That they’re in the right to block foreign business. In this context, they are. Here in the US, you’ll frequently see the signs “we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.” and generally speaking that’s perfectly okay to do. But this blocking of foreign business only started after Equality Now started their shit. This sophomoric reactionary stance is pretty fucking childish. Hello, it was your own fucking government that passed the goddamn regulations. The US didn’t do it. England didn’t do it. Zimbabwe didn’t fucking do it; It was your own goddamn politicians that couldn’t stand up for themselves, for the nation of Japan, for their rights, for anything. They’re the ones that said “You can’t do this.” End of line. Accept some goddamn personal fucking responsibility.

A second defense I’ve heard is that by blocking foreign IPs from visiting their site and purchasing/ using their games, they are defending their games against piracy. This is ALSO a crock of shit. It’s the Japanese that buy the games (IN JAPAN, LOLOLOL), it’s the Japanese that make digital copies, and upload them to P2P sites. Blocking foreign visitors from their website does nothing to “stem the tide against piracy” at all. Straw man defense: defeated.

So in any case, they’re taking out their impotent frustrations on the only people that can’t fight back: foreign fans. When you think about things like that, it’s not just insulting, it’s a brutal assault on your own humanity. You’re not worthy of playing their games by virtue of your birth- something you can no more control than the weather. Ultimately foreign fans have two (realistic) choices (I’m not even going to factor in minori’s outrageous idea of moving to another country just to play their games- let’s not be completely fucking stupid) when it comes to playing their games:

1. Give up on playing their games altogether. (no way!)
2. Get their games from another source, bypassing minori altogether. (Can do.)

In addition to that, my desire to play these games comes and goes in waves, and this was essentially ebb tide. Part of that is my completionist nature: I have to complete every game I play. I tried my hand at Clannad, and I ended up stopping after playing through the best route, simply because I have absolutely no desire for any of the other girls. Since I can’t start a new game because I haven’t finished Clannad (and won’t ever) I simply stopped playing altogether. Well, I got over that and soon I’ll have a good review of SWAN SONG up on the site. Maybe within the next couple of days. Look forward to it!

So I read an interesting article in USA Today the other day. It started out by saying

“A Mississippi county school board announced Wednesday it would cancel its upcoming prom after a gay student petitioned to bring a same-sex date to the event.”

And at first I thought, “Well, that’s shitty.” But after i thought about it more and more, I realized there’s probably an element I neglected in the equation: She petitioned. See, there’s one thing I’ve always disliked and I’d like to take this opportunity to expound upon a certain aspect of my beliefs that is relevant to this situation.

I believe in a certain amount of what I would consider ‘universal rights’. (Setting aside the valid statement that it is governments, powers, and principalities that establish rights in the first place, I think it’s our obligation to establish a codified set of rights that every human has on the planet. It’s not surprising that there is a globally recognized system of rights that does exactly that, but this is outside the scope of my discussion.) I believe that everyone has the right to be treated equally. What this means is equal dispensation.For the most part this is something that is universally recognized and accepted. I don’t care if you’re black, brown, yellow, white or blue. You’re a human being and I’ll treat you exactly the same as any other human being. That’s it, that’s all there is to it.

What I hate though is that people capitalize on this sort of liberty that is handed to everyone. People that seek out special dispensation for the sake of attention. Not because they are being unfairly treated or mishandled or threatened, but because they have a false sense of entitlement- that is to say that they believe they are unique and precious and because they are unique and precious they deserve additional attention, dispensation, and consideration. This is a fundamental abuse of a system that we have struggled to maintain.

You watch the video and it’s all “me me me, I I I” it has absolutely nothing to do with rights being violated. The school district said that there was a distraction in the learning environment. Of course there would be a distraction if you’ve got a histrionic dyke that’s full of herself that has decided that she needs to take a stand in as public a way as possible. She started a petition, they made some changes in the hopes that she’d shut up and go away, and she decided to involve the press because that’s what needy attention-deprived people with self-esteem issues do when they don’t get their own way: they throw a public fit in the hopes that sooner or later someone will give them what they want.The result: The school canceled the prom. While I believe it was a bit heavy-handed, it’s also a fundamentally brilliant political maneuver. They are being quite fair to everyone.

In terms of personal experience, and keeping in mind that I haven’t been to a school dance in nearly two decades, I’m fairly certain that there actually were rules against same-sex couples going to prom. There were groups of girls and guys (both gay/ lesbian and straight) that went in couples and groups to the prom anyway, and while the rules forbade it, it happened, and I’m fairly certain that a blind eye was turned. The reason? Nobody made a big deal about it. There was no ‘petition’, there was no outcry, there was no big deal made. They simply went anyway. No great revolution, no media leakage, no reactionary fat girl sobbing hysterically on the evening news that she wasn’t getting her own way and it wasn’t fair.

Don’t get me wrong. There are legitimate violations of agreed-upon human rights all the time happening all over the world, every single day. Going to prom (or not going to prom) isn’t one of them.

One thing I’ve been facepalming over (and over and over, etc) is people who see ‘Fight Club’ or some other … trendy fucking movie, they suddenly “see the light” and “wake up” and suddenly they’re this bleary-eyed basket case with half-boiled convictions and a head full of fucked-up wiring, determined to preach the fucking gospel to a bunch retards with brains the consistency of used oatmeal. They’re (usually) the first to preach about the injustice of it all, and complain about the intolerance of living in a society that gets off on a lack of personal accountability and encourages a false sense of entitlement. They’re also the last in line to realize that they’re just as at fault as the “sheep” and “tools” and “mindless drones” they castigate. They might not see it, but it’s simply another insurgence of the ‘I want’ mentality that they themselves claim to oppose. It’s the ‘have-nots’ complaining that they’re not getting what the ‘haves’ have. If there’s one thing I can’t fucking stand it’s the thought that these idealists  scream about revolution but never fire a shot.

Listen: If you feel you are somehow ‘enlightened’, or you think that the other people around you are ‘mindless sheep’, ‘drones’, or ‘slaves to the corporation/ government/ fire hydrant’ or if you’ve ever had the idea that people need to ‘wake up’, congrats. You’re part of the fucking problem.
Any first-year revolutionary will tell you that the government is corrupt, society is weak and complacent, Mass Media and the infoglut are part of the problem.
Any first year punk rocker will tell you that revolution is coming and that the only way to avoid being sucked into the nine-to-five rat race is to fight the power.
Any first year sociology student will tell you that all of these things fit together to form the society as a whole. That it doesn’t matter at all where you stand or what you stand on, you’re simply fulfilling a role. Eat your fucking breakfast.

Ever since “Equality Now” pulled their little stunt with Japan and sparked an international debate, I’ve been reading more and more about Japan’s histrionically paranoid, xenophobic and isolationist attitude towards the rest of the world. If something happens on an international level, Japan withdraws from the international scene that much more. A great case in point is the Equality Now issue: Someone from England bitched, and suddenly Japanese websites stopped allowing foreign traffic. Many businesses in Japan refuse to do overseas business. A little-reported but mentionable case is when the H1N1 flu started entering the public scene- Japanese people that were out in other countries were encouraged to return to Japan.

Ultimately it’s this attitude that has discouraged me from buying any more games or merchandise from Japan. If I’m not “good enough” because I’m not native, then I’ll spend my hard-earned and hard-saved money elsewhere. Though that won’t stop me from playing.

Being exposed to this attitude has in turn made me aware of it on a larger scale- it’s not exclusively Japanese, and this in turn has made me far more aware of what happens on the international scene. I was recently reading an article about a particular event in France where French President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke up against Islamic isolationism in France.

See, here’s how it goes down: Paranoid hate-mongering Islamics immigrate to France. Rather than integrate into the society that has welcomed them in, they instead form isolated ghetto communities that stagnate and putrify. They don’t want help.
From an article I read: “At the heart of the identity crisis plaguing today’s France is a significant immigrant population that refuses to become French, and a multicultural left that has allowed them to live isolated in ghettoes for decades, where many have fallen prey to Muslim preachers of hate.”

This leads to poor, marginalized minorities constantly thinking that “hurr durr the white man is keeping us down” no matter what is done- constantly discouraging themselves to do anything constructive, praying Allah because their parents do, and getting turned into fanatics easily, and indulging themselves into all sorts of criminal activities, all based on “BAAAAW we’re so unhappy, if you don’t let us do whatever we want, you’re a fascist”.

All of this, of course, could be averted if they simply dropped their isolationist attitude and worked towards the idea of one world community.

“Although many have assimilated into French secular society, which Sarkozy applauded, others openly seek to transform France into a Muslim nation and have won allies in the multicultural left.
“France does not demand that you give up your history or your culture,” Sarkozy said. “But France demands of those who would link their fates to hers to also share her history and her culture. France is not hodgepodge of communities or individuals. . . Becoming French means accepting a form of civilization, values, and customs.”
Sarkozy’s definition of those values left no ambiguity from which direction he felt the danger was coming: “France is a country where women are free. France is a country where church is separate from state, and where the beliefs of each person are respected.
“But France is also a country where there is no room for the burka, and where there is no room for the subjugation of women under any circumstance or pretext.”
The French have debated for 25 years whether Muslim women should be allowed to veil themselves in public schools or in public workplaces, as radical Muslim preachers and their supporters on the left have demanded.
Sarkozy ended that debate scarcely one year after becoming president by outlawing the veil in public last year.
In announcing the reform at the time, Sarkozy said he was troubled by the “discriminatory and degrading” Islamist practice of veiling women.
“I don’t want certain neighborhoods to feel more like Kabul or Tehran than France,” he said.
The same day Sarkozy gave his speech on national identity, police turned away a group of women wearing Islamist veils as they attempted to enter the French National Assembly.
Sarkozy took direct aim at radical secularists as well. While calling on immigrants to share French values, he said French men and women have to believe in those values themselves.
“To open our doors to others, we have to have enough confidence in ourselves. We must be sure of our values and of our model,” he said.
“By giving in to moral equivalence that proclaims all values, behaviors and accomplishments to be the same, we strike a blow against the idea of civilization and against society itself,” he said.
And then he warned: “And it is for this reason, my fellow citizens, that anyone who comes to France to call for violence and hatred of the other will be deported.”
If France is having problems with integrating Muslims, “it is not our values that are at fault but our departure from them, at times even our denial of them,” Sarkozy said.”

I believe in this. I believe that there should not be any isolationism. I believe in a free and equitable exchange of ideas, beliefs, and information. I believe in liberation from outmoded and fear- and hate-driven ideologies. In this I express belief that it is not only our individuality, uniqueness and self-identity, but also our willingness to work together across cultural and social boundaries and barriers that gives us our true strength.”

These are the things in this world today. Where everyone tries to live. And here in this world are the things we want: sex and birth, votes and traits. money and guilt, television and teddy bears. But all we’ve actually got is each other.

pixiebell arghhhh, can’t find my skinny belt
pixiebell will have to buy one at lunch because this outfit looks retarded
NEET1079 use the fat belt, pixie.
NEET1079 faaaaat
[...time elapses...]
pixiebell Nestor: I ended up changing outfits
NEET1079 ahahahaha
NEET1079 hahahaha
NEET1079 I suspected that’d be the result
pixiebell hahaha
pixiebell ok, off to work~ later guys

Okay kids. Class is in session. Why did I suspect that pixie would change her entire outfit?

Let’s pretend you have a particular outfit. one part doesn’t match. What’s the logical conclusion?
1. find a replacement part, or make due without it.

Now, Let’s pretend you’re a woman, and repeat the same scenario:
1. CHANGE OUTFITS COMPLETELY.

The lesson learned? The most irrational and inexplicable conclusion is the most logical conclusion for a woman.

This has been a public service announcement.

Just kidding, I felt like being a chauvinist ass.

Off and on I hear about our favorite anti-free speech, pro-censorship feminist group Equality Now attempting to do away with all sorts of things they arbitrarily deem offensive, all around the world. I don’t claim to have my thumb on the pulse of events, and most certainly I don’t have any sort of reputable information to present, but this is what I’ve heard:

First, we know that they forced japan to essentially fuck themselves in the ass. Well, the Japanese fucked themselves in the ass, because they bent over for the giant gaijin penis. err, vagina. Whatever. The Japanese should have told the histrionic feminist group to get fucked, get back to the kitchen, and then slapped them in the face with their constitutional rights. To climb on a moral LAWFUL GOOD soapbox here, it doesn’t matter if I find rape games to be disgusting or reprehensible, the constitutional law says they can be made and sold to the adults that want them and that right cannot be infringed upon. Period. Equality Now should have been told to fuck off.

Secondly, and apparently most recently, (no verifiable sources on this one, sorry) Equality Now has decided that what they’ve done simply is not enough. “Japan is a nation which accepts hentai. This encourages rape so hentai must be banned. Rapelay was withdrawn from sale, the EOCS banned all fetishes, and some companies have banned foreigners from their websites. This is not enough. The Japanese government must ban everything we object to and make it all illegal. The UN must tell the Japanese to do as we direct.” Of course, they also say, “Women should not have to resist sex to be able to call it rape.” which opens up a whole different direction of irrationality and misandric terrorism. I can see it now: “he raped me.” “no, it was consensual.” “I don’t have to say no, fight back, disagree, or otherwise express an unwillingness to have sex, I can simply decide that it was rape and it is so.”

Let’s sort of set that to the side here for a brief bit. One thing I can’t help but do is draw a parallel between this… ridiculous campaign and jack Thompson’s equally ridiculous campaign against violence in video games. Same medium of entertainment, same question of artistic expression, etc. But I will show you a couple of things I’ve picked up in my travels through the internet and I’d like to ask you to consider a few things.
First, rape has gone down since the early nineties.(Source) This roughly coincides with the increase of VCRs and VHS distribution of porn. There’s no direct correlation that says that as sales of porn videos have gone up, rape has gone down, but it’s damn suggestive.

Second, Violent crime has also gone down since the early nineties (Source) which again also roughly coincides with a larger market penetration of ‘violent’ console and PC games. Again, no direct correlation between violent crimes and violent games here, but as I said before, it’s suggestive.

So, putting two and two together, we can see the direction Equality Now is taking is a bad one. However, the Japanese have a bit of a passive-aggressive inferiority complex, which means that if a vocal histrionic and irrational minority like EN says something should be banned, they will willingly and happily legislate it out of existence without so much as a whimper of resistance- and then they’ll angrily mutter under their breaths about how it’s EN’s THE FILTHY GAIJIN’S fault. Simply put: Equality Now is a bunch of fucked-up and histrionic cunts, and the Japanese are servile spineless fags. What a great combination.

Twenty-five years ago, if I had been asked about romance, I probably would have replied “That’s icky stuff, girls are gross.” Twenty years ago, I would have said, “cards, candy, flowers” …essentially the staples of any Valentine’s Day.Fifteen years ago, I would have said the previous, but added in secluded dinners for two, fireplaces, getaways, etc.

When you get older you understand it’s not just a matter of giving of material gifts, but it’s also to a certain extent ‘being thoughtful’ and paying attention to the complex, bizarre, mostly contradictory and irrational wants and desires of your partner. And then satisfying those desires with material objects and emotional validation. Women need to be reassured that they’re still attractive. Women need to be reassured that they’re still sexy. Women need to be reassured that they’re still appreciated. Women need to be reassured that they’re still women.

You see it all in contemporary television, and if you look at it with a scrutinizing eye, you see the ever-popular scene: man forgets anniversary or birthday or valentines day or whatever, and becomes a nervous wreck buying a last-minute present that he hopes will appease the woman. Maybe my chauvinism is showing a little, but I can see that scene in dozens of different dramas and sitcoms and errata- women are being programmed to expect unnecessary amounts of gifts. Women are idols that must be sacrificed unto. Men are stupid, bumbling idiots that have to be reminded of their place: which is to say sacrificing hard-earned money and groveling at the feet of the woman in the hopes that she deigns to grant him the use of her vagina.

There are solutions, though. By not buying into the shallow, materialistic ideas of romance perpetuated by the misandric feminist movement, by not collapsing into complacency and pursuing your girl consistently, by consistently providing attention, affection and appreciation, you can avoid emasculating yourself (and your wallet) for the sake of the almighty vagina. Alternatively, the Japanese have come up with a unique solution: simply abandoning women in totality.

The guru of the 2-D love movement, Toru Honda, a 40-year-old man with a boyishly round face and puppy-dog eyes, has written half a dozen books advocating the 2-D lifestyle. A few years ago, Honda, a college dropout who worked a succession of jobs at video-game companies, began to use the Internet to urge otaku to stand with pride against good-looking men and women. His site generated enough buzz to earn him a publishing contract, and in 2005 he released a book condemning what he calls “romantic capitalism.” Honda argues that romance was marketed so excessively through B-movies, soap operas and novels during Japan’s economic bubble of the ’80s that it has become a commodity and its true value has been lost; romance is so tainted with social constructs that it can be bought by only good looks and money. According to Honda, somewhere along the way, decent men like himself lost interest in the notion entirely and turned to 2-D. “Pure love is completely gone in the real world,” Honda wrote. “As long as you train your imagination, a 2-D relationship is much more passionate than a 3-D one.” Honda insists that he’s advocating not prurience but a whole new kind of romance. If, as some researchers suggest, romantic love can be broken down into electrical impulses in the brain, then why not train the mind to simulate those signals while looking at an inanimate character?

When Tinfoil mentioned that he was looking for QC’ers for the Chaos;head RC2 patch, I went ahead and jumped on it. hanging out with them on their irc channel and listening to them talk about various problems and searching for workarounds, it really helps cement in your mind tha tthis isn’t as loose and as disorganized as many people seem to believe.

Some time ago, someone affiliated with a game translation group mentioned that wiki-driven and community-driven projects were doomed to failure, and that only dedicated groups with staff would be able to turn out any sort of … product. He went on to castigate everyone at TLWiki, wretched hive of scum and villainy, so on and so forth. Now, admittedly, I haven’t spent but one day with TLWiki, but there doesn’t seem to be the sort of disorganization, chaos, or what-have-you that he predicted.

Anyway, getting back to the central part, I’m QC’ing the RC2 with the expectation that I’ll be grammar-nazi-ing the text. this means I’ll be playing through it again, something I’ve been hesitant about doing. To be frank, I’ve been hesitant about playing any game, I’ve reached a point where a sabbatical is necessary. I love the game though, and I want to help, so it’s time I leave Elba and get back into it. I can only hope that I don’t end up returning to St. Helena to complete my exile, hahaha.

Coming back to the ren’ai/ visual novel/ eroge genre, the big thing that’s on the lips and hearts of the entire community is the rather … dramatic actions that have been going down. I can’t summarize very well- No, I can, but this sums it up succinctly, taken from sankaku complex.

An Irish rag on a slow news day picks up the story that importers have been selling Rapelay via Amazon. The theme is that the game encourages rape and is child pornography.

Amazon completely drops the product, including in Japan. Other retailers soon follow suit.

Feminist busybody group “Equality Now”, which organises spam campaigns to keep its members busy without actually having to deal with problems directly, targets the game, accusing it of human rights violations and telling the Japanese government it should be banning this sort of thing, like low crime paradises such as the UK.

The developers tell the foreign feminists to get lost.

Soon after the Rapelay developers cave in and completely remove the game from distribution.

Equality Now’s Japanese lawyer (the group has no presence in Japan) drums up anti-eroge media attention.

A Japanese diet member, an avowed feminist, picks up on the scandal and starts calling for a ban. Objections start with the opposition and minor parties and soon the ruling party jumps onto the bandwagon.

A “study group” is organised to decide how best to ban the games.

Broadcaster TBS falsely reports that the EOCS has banned the games.

The EOCS bans the games.

Personally, I think it’s a bunch of bullshit from a bunch of histrionic women that have nothing better to do than meddle in other peoples’ lives. I have low opinions of feminists as it is: a vocal group of women looking to work at cross-purposes to any other suggestion excepting their own agenda, namely that of the bitterly vengeful subjugation of the evil opressive patriarchy. A shame they can’t channel that energy towards more positive, constructive pursuits- after all, that sammich won’t make itself.

Getting back to it, though, my view is this: a woman in britainland arbitrarily decides that a fictitious game is the root of all evil, and campaigns for its removal. Any sane society would have told ‘Equality Now’ to get fucked. I’d like to point out the rough parallel Jack Thompson made with his (equally ridiculous) hate-parades on violent video games being the source of all the world’s sores. Unfortunately, Eroge makers have pretended to be good little dead goldfish and have shown their bellies, resulting in regulation and censorship on more or less, an unregulated industry. Now where will I find a game that lets me whip a pooping catgirl? Without caving to hysteria or running off the deep end, this sort of sets a dangerous precedent. After all, we’re talking about the censorship of fiction and fantasy. This is something to be concerned with.

The result of this censorship has been less than stellar. A few companies have started blocking non-japanese IP addresses. This is the wrong thing to do. It was japanese legislation, it was japanese politics, it was japanese corporate interest that censored them- however foreign fans feel the brunt. The Japanese should have told Equality Now to get fucked, get back to the kitchen, and then slapped them in the face with their right to freedom of speech. Foreign fans should not be punished because of local ineptitude. Instead, we get xenophobic statements like

Some foreigners seem to be having an antipathy against EROGE.
Therefore, We prohibited the access from foreign countries, to defend our culture.

And let’s not forget,

PLEASE PLAY THE GAME OF YOUR COUNTRY IF YOU PRAY FOR THE WORLD PEACE!:-)?

So the conclusion that can be drawn from this is… Gobots suck.

I propose that irregardless of the physical existence of the individual, a societal existence is wholly reliant upon societal recognizance. To wit, if no one in your society knows of your existence, you don’t exist. The society typically has measures in place: citizenship, birth certificates, census, taxes and tributes, educational and employment records, marriage records, and death certificates and notifications. Identity is clearly and obviously established only through societal recognition, irregardless of your own individual accomplishments. Who would acknowledge your society-given rights if you had none of the aforementioned documentation? There is at no point in your involvement with the society when there isn’t a clear and obvious placement within the society, so therefore, the society creates recognition and acknowledgement, bringing us full circle: the society creates your existience.

“Laws come from people when the need arise(s)” And this is true. Refer back to my earlier statement: “Organization of a society means rules.” The individual in any given society has a vested interest in said society, but there exists a need for rules and regulations that establishes a clear-cut delineation between what is good for the society and what poses a detriment to said society. To wit: killing another member of the society threatens the existence of said society, therefore it should not be sanctioned.

From this we can derive several things: Firstly, the individual (further termed citizen, for brevity)  that has a vested interest in the survival of the society would be appropriate in creating and enforcing the jurisdiction of the society’s influence. To wit: If you contribute to the society through service, deed, donation, or merit, then you have the right to propose laws.

Secondly, the aforementioned citizen has the right and responsibility to enforce the laws through corrective action and the propagation of information. To wit: reporting a crime, and educating your offspring on what constitutes a crime and why they should avoid such activities.

Finally, the citizen also has the right and responsibility to dispose of laws. Rulings that are outmoded, contradictory, or destabilize the society should be corrected and resubmitted or removed outright.

In conclusion the valuation of a citizen is the ability to propose how they should be governed, enforce that government, and change or nullify the governing of the society in order to protect and ensure the survivability of the society.

Going forward, we’ve determined that a citizen is a valued member of the society he inhabits because he contributes to its well-being. Therefore the question “Does man exist to serve society, or does society exist to serve man?” is rendered almost meaningless; the symbiotic nature of the citizen and his society answers the question clearly. The man protects and provides for the continued well-being of the society he inhabits and in turn the society protects and provides for the well being of the citizen. The caveat being that the society is much larger than the individual and thus ultimately more important than the individual.

To be continued in Part Three: The Society

“That’s one of the things that’s always fascinated me. The Question, “Why are we here? What’s our reason for being?”.” –Douglas McBride

For starters, humans are animals. Awesomely sophisticated animals, but animals nonetheless. Therefore our reason for being would be to live in the world and to reproduce; the same as any other animal. We eat, sleep, hump and shit the same as every other animal, therefore on an animalistic level; we are fulfilling our responsibilities and obligations as animals, in the animal kingdom.

Moving up to the next rung, we come to Intelligent Animals. While this is more hazy, I believe that as an intelligent animal, our responsibilities also include the accumulation and propagation of knowledge, information, intelligence. For the most part we follow this concept. It’s been proven that each generation is successively smarter than the previous. It’s essential for us to do this for us, in fact, because we have abdicated natural evolution in favor of technological evolution. Rather than growing thicker pelts, sharper claws and teeth, stronger legs, we instead arrest the process by inventing clothing, eating utensils, and all manner of transportation. This provokes a differing form of evolution, though. Our lifespans are longer, our braincases are larger, we retain more information. To better propagate knowledge and intelligence, it must be shared. It’s the same reason most animals reproduce: survivability. If you teach someone to fish, the knowledge of how to fish is passed on- you can die, knowing that someone else knows how to fish. They can in turn pass on that information. Thus we add another rung to the ladder of existence: organized society.

A society that is led and directed can organize and disburse information, knowledge that is vital to the survival of the society. As an example, if you were to decide to create a society that existed in the arctic, it would behoove you to tell your constituents to dress warmly, else wise survivability would be impossible.

Organization of a society means rules. Codes of conduct. Laws, codes of conduct, mores, values, theologies and history help establish a functional society, providing a skeleton that supports the creature that is society. A society without ordered structure is anarchistic and will eventually consume itself.

Setting aside such abstract concepts as theologic and philosophic ideologies, we come to the point: What is our purpose? Our “Raison d’être”, so to speak? Strictly speaking from a societal sense, our reason for existence falls within several categories simultaneously.

First, we must fulfill our animalistic responsibilities. We must birth, grow, develop, reproduce, and die.

Second, as intelligent animals, we must learn and in turn teach to propagate our knowledge.

Finally, as members of society, we must contribute to the society’s survival, we must protect the society’s welfare, we must learn the society’s values and knowledge, and promote these things to our offspring.

To contribute to the society’s survival, we have jobs to fulfill, roles to perform, responsibilities to embrace. To protect the society’s welfare, we must be concerned with the growth and development of the society as well as be aware of external influences that affect the society’s internal functions. The valuation of the society’s beliefs and passing them on to the next generation ensures the survival of the society with the next generation.

In discussing the structure of society and the nature of society, one must consider the existence of one who is a part of the society; that’s for Part Two: The Citizen.

(Special thanks, respect, and other such awesomeness go out to OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol, for his help with Part Two: The Citizen and Part Three: The Society)