TOPIC: The well-being of a society is enhanced when many of its people questions authority.
Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.
This issue raises the controversial issue of whether questioning authority contribute to the well-being of a society. Indisputably, there might be cases where absolute obedience is harmful in terms of the well-being of a society, however, questioning authority would not enhance the well-being of a society.
First of all, the meaning of having laws is that, regardless of what society thinks of them, everybody would obey them. Otherwise, in a society where everybody has his opinion of whether a particular law should be obeyed or not, every single one would experience chaos. Take laws regarding traffic signs as an example. Where there are a traffic sign and no traffic police who tells you to ignore the traffic sign you have to do what the traffic sign tells you to do. If it tells you to make a stop for a few second before you pass you have to regardless what you think of you should do. At 3 am you might think that there is no need to obey the traffic sign since there would be no one else that could be harmed because of your disobedience. However, there is always a possibility that there is someone who rely on your stopping and that could be hurt unless you stop. Also, even though you are alone and there is no one in danger you still should obey the traffic signs unless it might become a habit of yours through time which would put everyone’s live in traffic with you in danger.
Besides, many thinks that state should not intervene with its citizens’ private lives. For this reason, for many in the United States, laws that prohibit consumption of certain drugs including marihuana is arbitrary, therefore, can be violated. However, what those people don’t take into account that whether a law is arbitrary or not is irrelevant when it comes to obeying the law. In a society, some people obey a certain law and the others don’t the well-being of everybody in that society is doomed. In the example of consuming marihuana, if we look at the bigger picture, when some citizens decide to buy marihuana there is always some others who sell marihuana. Although the state would be informed if this was a legal trade, in this example, state does not have a track who’s selling. This call so many problems like uncontrolled black market. Once the buyer becomes addicted to marihuana now the seller can up the price five hundred percent. Although this would be prohibited under state law since state has not control over black market the buyer is hopeless to cave. Also, marihuana which is unhealthier than a cigar is sold to underage who even legally are not allowed to consume a cigar. This would disturb the parents but more importantly they might lose trust in police and the state who cannot prevent such illegal trade.
In addition, not only in state affairs, but also in family order, disobeying authority could hurt the well-being of family members and eventually of the society. A fourteen-year-old might think that she has a right to stay out until 3 am or to have sex. However, she is apparently not mature enough to make such live-changing decision herself. Therefore, her parents legally and morally obliged to prevent her from making such radical decisions. In this case we cannot claim that her well-being would enhance if she disobeys his parents and do whatever she wants. Even a mistake in age fourteen can affect her rest of the live. First, she could experience trauma because of having sex too early or she might get pregnant. In both cases, her all live is ruined because she disobeyed her parents rules against sex or staying out until late.
