In a Manner of Speaking

In a manner of speaking, you could say that all that stuff came from society, just like, in a manner of speaking, you could say that it all came from God or Mother Nature. That's not the way I look at it though. In my view, the food and clothing came from my parents. The "free" schooling was also paid for by my parents, and a bunch of other people's parents, and other taxpayers who didn't even have kids in school. Similarly, the public roads and Social Security was funded by taxpayers, of which I am one. The government organized all that stuff, but we the people paid for it, and also paid the salaries of the government people who organized it. The poor people in Bangladesh, who you include in your society, didn't pay for any of it. Indeed, the American people paid for some of the stuff they  have in Bangladesh. With the modern conveniences, it's a little different. First all that stuff had to be invented by somebody, produced by somebody, transported by somebody, and sold by somebody, all of whom were doing it to make money. Not that there's anything wrong with that!

Society is not a real thing anyway, it's just a figure of speech that is used to describe the collective behaviors of a bunch of individual people. Sometimes these people may be acting collectively on purpose, and other times they may be each acting independently with no thought of how their actions will affect the collective outcome.

When my mother used to lecture me on the expectations of society, I think she just meant social expectations. If there were any legal expectations, I think she would have told me, "It's the law.", which would have carried more weight. Social expectations are only valid if you consider yourself to be a member of that particular society. In some cultures there is a social expectation that people should eat other people (not in a nice way). Outside of those particular cultures, there is the social expectation that people should not eat other people. If you were to visit one of those cannibal tribes, they probably wouldn't expect you to eat anybody. If you wanted to stay and become a member of the tribe, however, they would most certainly require you to eat somebody as the price of admission. In a manner of speaking, then, I am just visiting all you people and, if you want me to do something that I don't want to do, I'm outta here.  

You spent five hours watching that Republican debate? You're not planning to vote Republican, so why do you care? I wouldn't spend five minutes watching it, or the Democratic one either, but that's just me. More people than you must be interested in that stuff, or they wouldn't put it on prime time TV. I suppose there are worse things you be doing with your time, at least it keeps you off the street.