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Quite the opposite. (Note that statement starts with 'If'.)
I've seen the argument that people should suffer for society far too much, with the condescending, sneering reply of 'Just go live in the wilderness, see how you like it' in response to people having issues with parts of current society to the point it's almost a cliché.
I'm a firm believer that door swings both ways - that society has an obligation to the people therein, and that people have an obligation to the society, but only when this operates in a fair, back and forth, equitable fashion. If society has gotten to the point where a sizable portion of people are going 'Fuck this, I'm out', then something about society has been broken fundamentally and needs to be addressed.
My argument is the statement of 'people owe the societies they live in', without any caveats, and the follow up of 'if you want to go live in the woods with wolves and bears for neighbors' with the implied threat therein, is just blind adherence, bordering on slavery.
Either it goes both ways, or it doesn't go at all.
Hence my reply of 'If the world owes you nothing, you owe nothing to the world'. Because if society owes you nothing, you owe nothing to society.
(Yes, there's the fair debate of how much society owes the individual, but let's not go into that right now...)
That makes a great deal of sense, and I would broadly agree. Thanks for clarifying.
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