Social Contracts

A couple of days back I was watching an episode of one of my fave TV shows, House M.D., and it has a case about a guy who suffers from frontal lobe disinhibition (or something like that), which basically removes the filter between your brain and mouth, and the guy ends up saying whatever comes into his mind. The episode uses this to touch upon the idea that all of share a certain ‘social contract’, whereby we deliberately conceal our thoughts from our social circle, and it works as a sort of mutual arrangement whereby you don’t tell me what I don’t want to here and I reciprocate the feeling. It’s kind of like, me asking my friend his opinion on my blog, and he says, “very nice, typically you”, where he really meant to say, “Get a life you jobless left wing freak who hates all things under the sun”. But it was a very interesting thought, wherein you are conscious of an underlying insincerity (for the lack of a better word) existing in those whom you socialize with, and what is more is that we actively encourage it. So I really began wondering whether all of our relationships, which in turn are the building blocks of society, built upon a mutual contract to deceive.

And as I got to thinking more, the whole idea of a universally accepted social contract changes your definition and understanding people. Do you judge people by how well they maintain the social contracts or, by what they really think and really are?  And if you perceive the social contract as an obligation to another individual (I used to believe honesty and forthrightness were obligations to other individuals) then, is a person who puts on the best social mask actually the best person? For example, you have these people who seem to be universally popular and you think that he/she is an all in all great guy, and suddenly someone props up to you and tells you that he is a jerk who behaves differently behind your back (I am sure a common occurrence in social circles). What would you think of the person? Is he really a jerk because he is two-faced, or is he really a nice guy, because he takes extra care to fulfil his social contract towards you, although he might thoroughly despise you? And this leaves me really confused, if you look up idiotic psychology manuals, you will probably be exposed to jargon like – relationships are built on trust and honesty, and crap like that. And I my sudden opinion, which flows in the face of what I have always thought, was that sometimes, society as a whole has progressed because of this social contract, because a lot of the time what we really need to hear is that which we want to hear.

Imagine this, you have a crush on a girl and ask 2 of your friends what your chances are, one says – “ Sure go ahead, she is perfect and won’t be able to resist you”, and the other says – “yeah right, you as much chance of dating her as the Knight Riders have of winning the IPL”. Who’s the better friend? One who save you from potential embarrassment and a possible slap (physical or psychological) or one who provides you with the confidence which might help you score a date way out of your league? Honestly I have no clue?

But I then tried to think, that by taking this whole ‘social contract’ into consideration, how I would change my expectation of behaviour from different groups of people. This is what I came up with and the results were very confusing indeed

·         Total Stranger I meet for a brief while – Total honesty

·         Acquaintance of Acquaintance – Maintain Social Contract in totality, tread carefully in conversation

·         Acquaintance – Either depending on whether he/she is Mr. Popular or Mr. Sarcasm

·         Friend/Hangout Group – Honesty

·         Good Friend – Follow Social Contract (cares more for what I feel than an average friend)

·         Really Good Friend – Absolute honesty

It’s funny how a simple television episode, which just points a fact of society which has actually existed for ever, can actually cause you to reconsider the whole basis of human relationships. Of course, perceptions may change over a course of time, but human beings, they will forever be the same. For instance this blog writer has a brain to mouth filter, which is perennially turned off, even without frontal lobe disinhibitions.