Who Owes Whom?

As a rule of thumb, no one owes anyone anything, short of what is promised within the confines of a contract, either explicit or implicit.

In terms of an explicit contract, I am referring to stuff that is usually backed by legal means, or at least, backed with enough ``force'' behind it that everyone agrees with when the construct and content of the contract is being explicitly delineated.

In terms of an implicit contract, I am referring to the more wooly concepts of ``social contracts'', or the use of a legal term to explain the kinds of implied expectations that people have when they exist within the society.

Most of the time, the explicit contracts are ``easy'' to define, and fairly straightforward to enforce---just follow the terms that have been spelt out within the body of the contract itself.

It is the implicit contracts that make things rather... divisive at times.

See, because the contracts are implicit, there is never an artefact that properly spells out all the rights, privileges, mores, and norms that are expected. Instead, these implicit contracts rely on a sufficiently vocal majority to educate, and to enforce.

There are four terms there that need explanation.

``Sufficiently vocal'' means that the people who follow the implicit contract must be willing to stand their ground and hold the righteousness of the implicit contract in a manner that makes their stance unambiguous and understandable.

``Majority'' refers to a large enough number of people that fulfil the level of a quorum, i.e. they are representative of the intent of the implicit contract through numbers alone.

``Educate'' refers to the promulgation and teaching of the intent of the implicit contract to those who are unfamiliar with it, either because of a lack of experience due to age, or a lack of experience due to being a transplant from a different cultural norm.

``Enforce'' refers to the actions that need to be taken to demonstrate the consequences of a violation of the terms of the implicit contract. Enforcement differs from education in that it refers purely to the demonstration of the consequences of violation---to properly rehabilitate the offender, education of the intent of the implicit contract to which the offender has violated needs to be made.

Part of the reason why people these days start having that entitled behaviour with respect to the implicit contract (and therefore coming to the conclusion that society somehow ``owes'' them various things) is due to the violation of one or more of the four terms set out.

The lack of the ``sufficiently vocal'' has resulted in the intent of the implicit contract being increasingly wooly and subjected to unjustifiable interpretations, not all of them necessarily following the proper intent.

The lack of the ``majority'' has resulted in smaller numbers of people dictating the terms of the implicit contract over the quiet voices of the larger quorum, with the additional side effect of acting as though these minority are indeed the majority, which further increases the fuzziness of the boundaries of the implicit contract.

The lack of ``education'' means that there is no consensus on what the intent of the implicit contract, which again feeds back into each person deciding to interpret things their own way regardless of the original intent.

The lack of ``enforcement'' further emboldens the offenders to continue on their path of heresy, further destabilising the social fabric that was based on the implicit contract.

Combine these with the increased isolation that many are practising from living in an increasingly urbanised landscape with more interesting broadcast-level virtual connections than a highly localised and personal connection just increases the level of entitlement to the level of angst of ``the world owes me!''.

``MT, what's the point here?''

Since when did my rants ever have a point? 🤷‍♂️

Till the next update.