The Necessity of Order

No doubt because the U.S. federal government is shutdown at the moment, the whole concept of government has been on my mind lately. First of all, it is appalling that government officials have allowed this to happen. Their complicit behavior in all this represents the ultimate in irresponsibility. As public servants their "bottom line" job is to "keep the lights on." Yet here we are. Over 800,000 federal employees are now out of work with no income for who knows how long? Maddeningly, those same public or elected officials who are responsible for the shutdown will continue to receive their paychecks.

Yes, I am quite angry at this. That aside, it raises the question of why mankind chooses government in the first place. How would life be without government? Government represents the ultimate in order. It is an entity that provides and maintains order and structure in the lives of people. It represents, I believe, an acknowledgement on the part of all of us that we need an overseeing body to protect us from descending into lives of chaos. As much as we may complain about government, the fact is we need it. To return to the current situation for a moment, as I see it, the problem is not government per se but rather the low caliber of a number of people who are elected to serve as leaders within it.

From a communication perspective, government provides order or guidelines that help establish how all of us interact. It is much like the basic rules of grammar that provide the rules by which we speak and/or write in the most coherent and understandable ways possible. While communication without such rules would continue, it would be far less civil. Much like government itself, we need grammar. This is not to say it cannot and should not be improved, however. We the people should never stop searching for ways to do that.