I never personally experienced this (I've always been employed since graduation and I got married before there was tinder), but it still always feels like a gut punch to read that other people experienced it.
I'm pretty sure society is not obligated to have an interest in you (I'm not trying to put words in your mouth however).
I think you become truly actualized only when you decide what it is you want, what you imagine for yourself. If what you want is in conflict with what society wants of you, you have to decide then whether it is important enough to you to take the road less travelled.
Watching biographies of various artistic people ("The Art Life" about David Lynch comes to mind, also "Crumb") it's clear that some people are just "a certain way" and will choose to live that way - society be damned. (Of course, that there are documentaries about these luminaries tells you that a few at least have found societal acceptance after all.)
And I can't help but think back to the punks, or goths or any of the other disenfranchised youth cultures that appeared to revel even in the rejection from broader society.
"The children they despise us, the difference is now we want to be hated."
If you consult statistical trends there's no reason for anyone ever to even feel any amount of joy. Either the economy is in collapse or headed towards a collapse. Either you are healthy and thus headed for illness or ill already.
It somewhat stops being a society if it says to some members "whether you live or die is irrelevant to me, I will not care either way". That's what some people experience at least some of the time.
There's a social contract. Is it still binding you if society doesn't hold up its end?
(Ethically, of course, spherical cows and all, there are many ways to discuss it - but why?)
Good fences make good neighbors.
Enforcement is the fence.
Functional societies have reasonable fences, and rarely need to test them in the majority case, because they’re functional. There is no point in thinking about testing something you know works.
When someone starts wandering off, or a problem case is there, it also deals with them in a way that doesn’t undermine everything else. It keeps problems at bay.
Without that fence, or when the fence starts being moved so it’s NOT in the right place, problems cascade and grow, society starts fighting itself and others as trust is lost in institutions and other people, and eventually, either vigilantism, civil war or mass corruption is the result. Like you’re discussing.
It’s a constant, ongoing process.
This also makes it pretty rough being an edge case, which is the context of the thread we’re in.
A society beyond a certain, relatively small size without law enforcement (or similar boundary setting and enforcement) will, no matter how amazing, fall apart as the natural forces of corruption and selfishness tear at it unchecked. It doesn’t have to be a professional corps of folks, but it has to be a working mechanism though. Even small groups have this. Usually in the form of a chief, village head, etc.
Larger groups of course need something more formalized eventually, just due to scale.
Regardless, not towing the line is going to get you stomped on, unless you’re able to get under the radar, or are part of a large enough group that you can force the apparatus to leave you alone. Though that definitely contributes to the whole ‘mass corruption’ problem.
I have grown to believe over time that this is true, and that most people are willing to throw away unsuccessful or unlucky others using this reasoning. It's depressing, but also frees you from feeling any particular obligation to society. If society doesn't either provide you with what you need or a means to achieve it, I recommend that you cheat, steal, tax-evade, and law-break as much as is personally beneficial.
And society has lots of fangs, in that sense.
It does matter. Plenty of subcultures have done stuff that is technically illegal, or at least could be prosecuted/or would be made illegal if noticed, but was quite beneficial to them in their own view, by not getting enough attention to be worth directly attacking! Or having folks be distracted enough elsewhere to not go after them.
I’m guessing most in the LGBTQ space can pretty clearly identify the difference between the two, for instance. Being accepted being even nicer than both, of course. Catered to almost unheard of!
I'm not sure that you're following exactly what I mean. I'm saying that once any ethical barrier involving 'obligation' to society is overcome, it's a problem to be calculated like any else. What are the risks, what are the returns.
As for the second part, it doesn't matter when the result is the same. I don't care if I'm being persecuted or ignored when my life is still shit. I'm not willing to sit on my hands under some false belief that turning the other cheek is pious when the only life I'll ever live is slipping through my fingers.
It tends to really bring the contrast out in the shit spectrum.
It can almost always get worse.
Young non-white men are less likely to be under the impression that society is looking out for them in the first place, so their choice of anti-social entertainment looks very different. It's more about detachment and the use of violence for personal enrichment because the social system doesn't matter.