Inspiration From the state of nature to the state of society: how to form a good group

Isn't the human being a "wolf to man", as the comic author Plautus wrote almost two centuries before our era? It's true that human beings sometimes behave in strange and cruel ways, obviously contrary to common sense and the laws of nature. On the other hand, they are also capable of kindness, wisdom and a level of understanding that surpasses that of animals. However, the debate as to whether man is fundamentally good or corrupt (the question of the original sin), and consequently whether it is life in society that has improved or corrupted him, has agitated the minds throughout history.

The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) wrote in his Leviathan that human beings, like animals, have a "perpetual concern for the future". In their natural state, they would pursue power out of "fear of death, poverty and all other misfortunes". They believed that an authoritarian society had to be organized to keep them on track: "It is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man." But even back then, the very brutal contact between European settlers and the "savages" of America had begun to suggest that not only was the society of the day not as civilized as it was made out to be, but that so-called "primitive" peoples might have values and codes of behavior that were entirely worthy of respect.

This gave rise to a vision of the "good savage", which ran counter to Hobbes. Although Jean-Jacques Rousseau did not use this term, in "A Discourse Upon the Origin and the Foundation of the Inequality Among Mankind" (published in Geneva in 1755), he declared that he saw man in his state of nature as follows: "I see him satisfying the calls of hunger under the first oak, and those of thirst at the first rivulet; I see him laying himself down to sleep at the foot of the same tree that afforded him his meal; and behold, this done, all his wants are completely supplied."

If we were to leave it at that, the debate would remain theoretical, since we live in a "state of society", i.e. in a highly organized, urbanized environment. The real question - especially for those in charge of a company or an association - is how to organize the members of one’s group to get the best out of them. If the group is not to degenerate into an authoritarian entity and, at the opposite extreme, descend into chaos, what should the social contract binding the individual to his group consist of?

To this question, the American philosopher L. Ron Hubbard (1911-1986) provided an answer in his essay "A True Group", establishing mutual duties:

"Any member of the group has the right to demand the most and highest level of the ideals, rationale and ethics of the group, and to demand that these be maintained. A true group owes to its individual members their livelihood and a chance for their future generations." He specified in particular that "the responsibility of the individual for the group as a whole should not be less than the responsibility of the group for the individual."

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(1) https://www.joachimschmid.ch/docs/PAzHobbeThoLeviatha.pdf