An ideal society is where everyone is self-content and living a healthy and peaceful life in harmony with the surrounding. To have an ideal society, there has to be complete harmony among the individuals on political, social, and economic terms. Equality, justice, and fraternity should be inculcated to be the foundation of society. An ideal society should live in harmony with nature by ensuring all its activities are environmentally sustainable. An ideal society should have norms which are the guiding principles that are both formal and informal. Social sanctions should be applied whenever there is a violation of norms. An ideal society should also have beliefs which are common ideas of social reality. A set of values should also be developed that define the value of various ideas and things in society. Philosophers and other technocrats have been articulating ideal societies which have been commonly known as utopia society. Most of the theoretical sociologists’ claims are usually based on their passion and moral commitments. Although most of them differed, they shared a distinctive sociological realism what is sometimes called naturalism.
Auguste Comte argued that, like the physical world, society operates under its own set of laws (Halfpenny, 2014). That makes an ideal society that should be governed by its laws which are developed by its people based on their interests and convictions. An ideal should have laws that govern it to ensure there is peace, order, and harmony. An ideal society should also have values that create a standard for determining what is just and good. However, this must be difficult because it will need people within society to agree. After all, there should be no one who feels left out in an ideal society. Therefore, to have a well-orderliness where everyone agrees on what justice requires, there should be consensus guided by principles of equality and fairness. Since an ideal society should have freedom of speech, conscience, and thought, everyone, should be allowed to participate when developing values that guide everyone. Beliefs are the convictions that people hold to be the truth. The ideal society should create a common dream that they believe in and have underlying values that guide them to achieve it (Bicchieri & Mercier, 2014). Values like loyalty, resilience, compassion, respect, and work ethic should be inculcated in society. Norms are the written or unwritten rules that guide all situations in an ideal society. To ensure uniformity and orderliness, a correctional system should be developed to ensure that the values and norms are adhered to. The method of teaching the values and norms should be through formal and informal education. The children should be taught while they are young the importance of the values, beliefs, and norms so that they follow them based on conviction rather than fear.
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To ensure balance and safety within the ideal society, it is important to consider the various interrelated aspects of society. The ideal society will have a social contract that is agreed upon by individuals within it stating the different laws and rules to be abided and the values, norms, and beliefs that are to be maintained. There should be no hierarchies in enforcing law and order to avoid some people being more equal than others. Everyone should be responsible for maintaining law and order and it should be a collective responsibility. For instance, if a person is found stealing which is against the values, norms, and beliefs of the society, the people who are near should agree on the best action guided by the standards of the society. Everyone should be encouraged to think critically and develop problem-solving skills so that they can be able to take care of arising issues. There should be rules, norms, laws, and taboos that deter or curtail behaviors, values, beliefs, and practices that are against the social order.
The ideal society will have various social groups based on contact, identification, rules and regulations, structure, and relation to society. Based on contact, there will be primary and secondary groups (Houston, 2014). The primary group is made up of people who interact frequently face-to-face because they have physical proximity, have intimate, intense, and personal relations. For instance, a family, peers, close friends, and people living within the same neighborhood. This group will be the foundation of the entire society because, for example, the family provides clothing, shelter, education, and food to children. It is this group that norms, values, and beliefs will be passed on from one generation to the other. The secondary group has less face-to-face interactions with relationships being less personal, less intense, and less intimate consisting of a larger size. Such a group is made up of doctor-patient relations, teacher-student relations, seller-customer relations, and other professional relations. In-group is made up of people who directly belong to a certain group (Millar, 2005). For example, a sports team, family, or occupation. An out-group means that certain people do not belong. For example, a person may not belong to a certain family but he/she belongs in society. All the social groups should have similarities since they are guided by the same principles and standards.
Deviance is a result of inequality which will not be there in an ideal society. In case there is deviance as a result of diversity and dissatisfaction it will disrupt society. It might lead to social change and the need to clarify the norms and values (Kogelmann, 2015). Society will not have ranks based on people’s wealth, education, race, income, or power because that will lead to disunity and disharmony. People will live and socialize with mutual respect and humility appreciating each other’s contribution and worth to society.
Gender roles in an ideal society show how people are expected to groom, conduct, act, speak and dress based on their gender. Society will highly consider what all genders are best in so that they can be assigned those roles and responsibilities. However, the allocation of roles based on capabilities should not be done to discriminate against either gender but people should be allowed to pursue their interests and passions regardless of gender.
The interactions between majorities and minorities based on race, ethnicity, religion, political affiliation, gender, and disability should be of mutual respect and compassion. The disabled should be treated with empathy and they should be given equal opportunities with people without disabilities. The members of the society who are aging should be taken care of by the younger generation to ensure that they are happy and they are healthy.
In conclusion, an ideal society creates an environment where everyone is contented and lives a peaceful and healthy life. Everyone in this kind of society lives in harmony with each other and nature. There are guiding principles that everyone is involved in creating and enforcing. Values, norms, and beliefs ensure there are unity and harmony and that the behavior, belief, and practices of members of an ideal society are predictable and they are in the best interest of the society. An ideal society should not have divisive classes that are based on ethnicity, gender, religion, wealth, race, or political affiliation but rather should be united in purpose. It should take care of the less fortunate, the elderly, and the disabled. Gender roles should be done to strengthen the society by assigning each gender roles that they are strong in rather than marginalizing or discriminating against one gender in assigning of duties.
References
Bicchieri, C., & Mercier, H. (2014). Norms and beliefs: How change occurs. The complexity of social norms (pp. 37-54). Springer, Cham.
Halfpenny, P. (2014). Positivism and sociology (RLE social theory): Explaining social life . Routledge.
Houston, C. (2014). The renaissance Utopia: Dialogue, travel, and the ideal society . Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Kogelmann, B. (2015). Frank Underwood Gives the Ideal Society a Reality Check. House of Cards and Philosophy: Underwood's Republic , 29-41.
Millar, S. E. (2005). An ideal society? Neighbors of diverse origins interact to create and maintain complex mini-organs in the skin. PLoS Biol , 3 (11), e372.
