"The Purge"

At work yesterday I was speaking with a coworker and the topic of this movie series came up. In all honesty, I've never actually seen any of the movies but I'm familiar with the premise and it's definitely an interesting one. In my best understanding, this is what the purge is: once a year for 12 hours all laws are disbanded and people are allowed to do whatever they want without consequences. As one might imagine, in the movies, complete chaos ensues. At least that's what I've gathered from the handful of clips that I've seen. My coworker asked me what I think it would be like if a real life "purge" occurred and I thought that was a fantastic question. It's definitely the kind of question I find worth thinking about. What do I think it would be like? It's honestly hard to say. I'd like to think I know a fair amount about human nature, but it's almost impossible to speculate on what people would really do if they were given such an opportunity. 12 whole hours without any laws is something one would assume would lead to all sorts of death and destruction, and I would guess that would be a large part of what would occur. I think many people would love nothing more than to unleash their most primal instincts and act on those desires. I think people would die, people would get robbed, assaults would occur, sexual and otherwise, but I don't think that kind of unfettered madness would be the only aspect of it. I thought about this all last night and realized that laws don't just prohibit harming others. They don't just keep us from killing each other, in fact they often fail to do that, but they also hold together basic societal institutions and I think those would crumble as well. Imagine the kind of defamation one could get away with slinging, how you could destroy peoples lives in so many other ways than physically. I think there would be plenty of that as well. Bank robberies would undoubtedly occur, and that's just a given because I've found that most people don't actually want to harm others, but would absolutely enrich themselves if presented with such an opportunity. However I would think that there would also be plenty of physical violence too. People are animals at heart, and the thin lines that laws draw are often the only things keeping people from acting on their animalistic desires. I would hope that most people would retain their basic humanity but I sincerely doubt that would be the case with everyone. That begs the question of what those would do that elected not to partake in the chaos? If you wanted to avoid the madness, where would you go if laws were disbanded everywhere? Perhaps some would try to hole up somewhere and try to wait it out, while others might elect to keep moving from place to place in order to avoid harm, but it's hard to say for sure which would be the most effective. In my mind, the purge, if enacted in reality, would be like Darwinism on steroids. The strong would seek to dominate, and the weak would seek to simply survive, but I also think that a lot of what makes one "strong" or "weak" is largely perception. Darwinism, specifically the "survival of the fittest" aspect of it, concerns evolution in animals. It's referring to species adapting to their environments for the purpose of survival and I wouldn't say that lines up perfectly with people in the human world. What makes one more "fit" to survive in the artificial world that we've created doesn't necessarily mirror animals adapting in the wild. Still, assuming Darwinism, or at least the belief in it's applicability to our society, would play a role in the purge isn't that much of a stretch in my mind. Now let's go over some problems I see with the idea of the purge. Yes it makes for an interesting plot for a movie, but it's obviously an insane concept. My coworker said that a large aspect of it, at least in the movies, is the need to lower population. First of all, overpopulation, at least the idea of it as a substantial threat to the world, is a huge red herring. Yes many cities in the world are overcrowded, but there is enough living space outside of them to accommodate for the growing population of the world. Many people are born every day, but so too do many die, and because of this, the idea that a "purge" would be necessary to curb this is just ludicrous. Another reason for the purge in the movies, at least I think I heard this, was that it allows people to let out all of their stress. I don't know for sure if that's actually one of the reasons for it, but if it is, that's absurd. Yes many people are under pressure, and I don't doubt that some would love the idea of being able to go insane and blow off steam once a year, but for centuries we've had laws and society has remained stable without anything like the purge. Of course "stable" is a relative term, but I'd say that, for the most part, my use of it is accurate. The idea of the purge also sounds like a Libertarians wet dream, which is also concerning. I feel like I've made my thoughts on Libertarianism pretty clear on here, and in my writings I'm pretty sure I detailed how I think some of their ideas aren't necessarily bad, but also not necessarily good were they to actually be implemented either. Laws aren't inherently bad, but they certainly can be. Still I don't think this is a good reason to get rid of them all together, no matter what you think the benefits might be. In fact, "the Purge" might be the best argument against such a philosophy, but again it is just a movie and doesn't necessarily reflect what it could be in real life. That, however, is almost impossible to say, because human nature is often impossible to predict. That doesn't change that it's an interesting concept to explore and dissect. I think ideas such as this are important to think about, at least in the context of understanding humanity and how we all function in terms of our minds and actions. Now that I've actually written all this, my interest in actually watching those movies has increased a little bit. Perhaps they may be good, at least in terms of entertainment.