The Key to Humans Humaning

This video is #sponsored by the City of Quincy. To discover more about Quincy, check out the link - https://discoverquincy.com While modern humans have existed for at least a few hundred thousands years, we didn’t really start massively progressing from our earliest ancestors until we began forming large and very complex societies after transitioning away from small hunter-gather groups for various reasons. Critical to all this being able to happen was creating sets of rules which members of each society agreed to live by. As John Wick’s Winston Scott so sagely stated, “Rules. Without them, we live with the animals.” While what specific laws these earliest agricultural societies functioned under has been largely lost to history outside of things we can infer from archaeological evidence, over the ensuing 10,000 years or so, humans have had a lot of ideas on what the best ways for societies to function are, and what sets of fundamental principles and laws to implement to get there. Perhaps not coincidentally, our biggest leaps in recent centuries came on the back of a major shift in such societal rules and government structure in many prominent nations- not only away from a system of hereditary elite who everyone and the system is meant to serve on some level, but also to systems where those who would abuse such power when given it are kept in check as much as possible and, in theory, those placed in power also are meant to serve the system and those very people who put them there, not wholly the other way around. Of course any system is rife for abuse, and, for example, the Soviet Union had just such a system setup which included in their latter two constitutions giving its citizens the rights of freedom of speech, the press, religion, and the right to assemble peacefully. In reality, however, if citizens used these constitutionally guaranteed freedoms in a way the authorities didn’t like, being imprisoned or even executed for it was a thing. Thus, even in clearly defined systems, if safeguards aren’t put in place to ensure these principles are enforced regardless of who is holding the positions of power, then the paper they are written on would perhaps more usefully be used to wipe one’s backside after doing their necessaries. Further, mobs are relatively easily swayed by exploiting facets of human psychology built into all of us. At all levels, while many may strive to be the ideal human and version of ourselves, we are all still human- subject to the same weaknesses, biases, and prejudices as those who came before us for tens of thousands of years. And even the most intelligent of us can be manipulated in various ways relatively easily, whether we like to admit it to ourselves or not. Thus, how an ideal society and government may function in theory, and one that can actually function well in the real world, are two VERY different things. Let alone forming a structure of government and laws that stands the test of time and provides some level of stability across many generations, with, unsurprisingly, the vast majority of constitutions going the way of the dodo within a decade or two of their establishment. Unsurprisingly from all this, forming effective and stable governments is extremely difficult, and I don’t think anyone would argue any government that exists today has yet reached the ultimate ideal for all. As the “Father of the U.S. Constitution”, James Madison, would sum up, “no Government of human device, & human administration can be perfect; [thus] that which is the least imperfect is therefore the best Govt.” But in the last several hundred years we humans have come a long way in this regard, and, perhaps not coincidentally, much like our progress starting 10,000 years ago or so through to relatively modern times made our progress the previous few hundred thousand years seem glacial, in the last few hundred years, humanity has advanced to a level in that timespan that makes our progress the previous 10,000 years seem at a snail’s pace. While countless things went into that, at its core many of these factors derive and were the indirect product of these more modern structures for civilization that allow extra freedoms, education, and relative stability for its populaces’ to prosper on an individual level. This all brings us to the topic of today, the oldest still functioning codified constitution. 0:00 Intro 1:48 Living With the Animals 5:42 The OG Constitution 10:12 Doing a Bad Job in a Good Way 15:29 A Culmination 23:00 We Hold These Truths to Be Self Evident 27:43 Too Good an Opinion of Human Nature 30:14 A Rising, Not a Setting Sun 45:19 Wherever There is an Interest and Power to Do Wrong, Wrong Will Generally Be Done 48:00 The Test of Time