The Three Arenas of Society

There are two fundamentally different social arenas of society, summed up as the civil and the criminal. In addition to these, there is a distortion to them, the political, an epi-arena which serves as an arena of its own for the sake of this study, though it is itself a phantasm, a misperception of reality.

The civil is that arena in which non-aggressive activities occur, those activities which are not acts of aggression, or non-defensive violence. Aggression moves the aggressor outside of the civil arena. As such, all activities in the civil arena are naturally limited to social activities that individuals willingly engage in, as individuals will leave situations they do not voluntarily engage in unless aggressed upon, along with defensive acts of violence which may be civilly meted out against aggressors. The civil arena, then, is that arena in which individuals voluntarily associate with one another so as to engage in reciprocal, mutual, or cooperative activities of compromise and collaboration that satisfy the ends of each participant, thereby bringing them together civilly. Being the arena in which individuals voluntarily participate for reciprocal, mutual, and cooperative ends-- and while not limited to it, containing also other forms of intercourse--, the civil arena is also the arena of pure economy, or economy which is not perverted by the presence of the other arenas. Economy, of course, has to do with the distribution of goods and services. As such, the civil is an arena in which personal property and individual liberty are respected. Importantly, the civil arena is not an arena that is entirely absent of sins or vices, but only of those sins and vices that correspond to criminal or political activity.

The criminal is that arena in which aggressive activities occur, those activities which initiate or threaten violence, such an act being an act of aggression. Such aggressions include trespass into one’s home, domestic appurtenance, or curtilage, vandalism, arson, assault, theft, robbery, burglary, fraud, rape, murder and other such mala in se crimes, “crimes by nature of malice.” These crimes are often understood to be criminal by their very nature, and are treated as violations of the natural laws of conscience, whereby a healthy individual would feel guilt in committing such an act, followed by remorse, and even a psychopath would understand that the widespread moral sentiments of others forbid such things. In traditional societies, custom did not make a distinction between criminal and government, but there is a distinction made today by force of legal imposition. And this distinction affects the category of criminal by distorting it. We’ll address government in a moment, as we are dealing with crime, but for now we will say that governments declare activities that would otherwise be considered to fall under the civil arena to be criminal, giving rise to the concept of mala prohibita crime, or “crime because prohibited by government.” For instance, the consumption of narcotics, or prostitution, while vices, are not natural crimes, because not aggressions, and so not infringements on civil society (until threatening aggression by necessity, not by probability). All other such non-aggressive sins and vices which are prohibited by legalities are also examples. This sort of “crime,” as it is not a natural crime, does not fall into the natural category of crime, and so does not properly belong in the arena of crime here explicated, being instead a prohibited social activity. As such, we will not be treating mala prohibita crime in the criminal, but in the civil arena, as is appropriate to natural philosophical distinctions.

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