Our societies, cultures and communities run on everyone obeying the rules. There is behavior which is acceptable, behavior which is tolerated and behavior which requires a disciplined response.  

The word discipline is bandied about a lot.  The concept is understood as something needed but it’s as though many don’t really know what society’s discipline is, what personal discipline is and think that their perception of discipline should apply to everyone else. What is discipline without mercy, tolerance and some knowledge of human frailty; but then nothing in life is fair.

Human beings are complex and delight in making rules.  Look at what is allowed and not allowed in any sport.  Rules are used here to make the game more complicated and require considerable skill to play it. Our cultures run on rules which become laws, sometimes over riding common sense. Then it becomes easy for the most innocent action to break the law.  As humans become more numerous, are we making our societies too complicated or do we need to punish?  Does it make us feel better if we can make someone pay for their inability to fit in.  Is overcrowding a factor in our behavior?

Sometimes in everyday life, the experiences which individuals have stretch their capacity to obey the norms of their community. Their experiences also make them disregard the value of those ‘rules’ by which the rest of us try to live. Experiences which include poverty, deprivation, joblessness, alcoholism, drug addiction and homelessness all put individuals in positions where they are outside the ‘norm’.  Sometimes the children growing up in these circumstances do not have the education which would give them equal starting ability with those in better circumstances. Prisons are full of individuals with poor education, mental health problems and labels about who they are. 

There are unspoken rules which cover all sorts of aspects of life, such as who it is acceptable to marry.  No reasons other than someone doesn’t fit into a proscribed position in society.  They are the wrong color, lack education, aren’t from the same social strata, don’t dress correctly and anything else you can think of. The question rises, are all our rules ones we need?

When humans break these rules, they are punished. Sometimes by society’s attitude to them.  Here disgrace, ostracism, cold shoulders, and generally making them into outcasts is the response. Sometimes the punishment is legal and they end in prison.  In both instances they are labeled.  

Humans need to put labels on everything and everyone; it’s part of the ‘rules’.  That way they know where they are in the order of life and it’s a short cut to ‘knowing’ where everyone else is.  Sometimes these labels stay with that individual for life, limiting their capacity to more on.  Felon for someone who has broken the law is one. Thief, scrounger, pick pocket and burglar might describe their activities.  But perhaps the fault lies in society’s inability to include all the citizens, to permit individual ways or being, in the system, rather than the individual who breaks the rules.  

Star Trek characters don’t appear to have any money but they are given the education they need which develops their abilities.  Perhaps before we get too excited about punishment we should be looking at ways in which society supports it’s citizens, is less divisive, and makes more of an effort to work with those who need help rather than punishment.