The Optional Society: How We Lost the Glue — and How to Restore It

Polarisation isn't the disease. It's the symptom of what we forgot to protect.

Society’s glue used to be simple: peaceful disagreement, same rules for all. But that glue is dissolving.

When freedoms depend on approval from today’s gatekeepers, the social fabric frays — leaving us more divided, more fearful, less free.

This is the price we pay for the new ‘Optional Society’.

How did we get here?

1. Rights Became Permissions

Remember when freedoms were universal? Now, they resemble parking permits — valid only with the stamp of approval from loud moral crusaders and a passive public.

The classical idea of freedom — equal rights, limited only by the equal rights of others — has been quietly set aside in favour of an unwritten rule: “Your freedom is valid only if we say so”.

What gets targeted isn't out of principle or fairness. It's what’s easiest. Many people see it, but muzzle themselves — not out of kindness, but out of fear. The fear of offending allows bad ideas to take root and flourish.

This is not democracy. It is the tyranny of the loud — over the silent.

2. Arguments Were Replaced by Labels

Once, we answered ideas with better ideas. Now, we answer with labels.

Disagree, and by lunch you'll be branded — a ‘Nazi’, or phobic, extremist, radicalised, or complicit — even if your only offence is nuance. Once labelled, you’re no longer in the conversation; you’re the 'problem' the conversation is about.

No rebuttal needed. No discussion allowed. One unapproved opinion and you’re finished. Debate becomes a gladiator pit — but with hashtags instead of swords.

The result? A spiral of silence. Dissenters go quiet. Those with microphones get louder. We mistake volume for consensus — and soon forget how to argue at all.

3. Core Values Became Optional

High-trust societies aren’t sustained by surveillance — they’re built on shared values: honesty, respect, responsibility.

Today, these values are not only neglected — sometimes, they are openly mocked.

• Politicians lie with impunity.

• Academics justify hate with footnotes.

• Violence is excused if the cause is “righteous” — or so they claim.

The issue is not just hypocrisy. It is the severing of values from behaviour. Ideology fills the space where shared values used to live.

Neutrality is no longer safe — unless you choose the “right” cause. When Spanish designer Miguel Adrover refused to work with Rosalía because she did not publicly support Palestine, many hailed it as courage, not a theft of her freedom of opinion.

When your beliefs are blessed, almost anything goes. If not, even silence may condemn you.

4. A New Social Contract Was Imposed Without Consent

A case from Canada: A man threatens to bomb every synagogue — gets 60 days of house arrest, three years’ probation, and some mandatory education. In the same country, a woman who helped organise a protest faces seven years in prison. Another woman joins ISIS, returns home — and walks free.

Glaring inconsistencies, unequal application of law, and arbitrary sentencing abound.

And not only in Canada. In too many cases you’d think satire wrote the judge's sentence. But satire has been furloughed — replaced by a reality beyond parody.

While we weren’t paying attention, the unwritten rules that bind society — our social contract — were quietly rewritten:

• Freedoms became conditional.

• Values became optional.

• Rules started to depend on who you are, not what you did.

The result? A society where trust erodes. Where group identity trumps personal responsibility. Where people are judged not by principle, but by politics.

5. We Surrendered Our Power

No tyrant imposed this on us.

It was seized by a loud minority willing to shame and purge anyone who pushes back.

We handed it over — to mobs, to fear, to convenience.

Society surrendered its power, slowly and silently. We have replaced civic courage with curated silence.

Not everything old was just. But not everything new is either.

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💡 So, What Can We Do?

Start small — but start.

• Speak out when others stay silent, not to provoke, but to defend what's right. 

• Defend the rights of those you disagree with — for if their freedom falls, yours is next. 

• Re-anchor yourself in values that cannot be politicised: dignity, restraint, kindness. 

• Resist moral convenience. Judge words and actions, not just the person or the cause.

Above all:

If you want to live in a free society, you have to claim your place in it. Don’t outsource your moral backbone — or your voice — to mob sentiment or cultural trends. Freedom isn’t handed down by the loudest shouters. And values don’t stand unless we do. They live or die by whether ordinary people — you — defend them, as if your own freedom depends on it. Because it does.

Civic courage is not a luxury. It is the pride of free people and the last line of defence for all our rights. The Optional Society is only inevitable if we let it be.

The only glue left is the one you create — through your words, your choices, and your refusal to call what is conditional “freedom” or what is optional “values”.

Your courage. Our future.