What it’s like walking the streets of Amman, Jordon as a woman

Don't speak of society as if it's a polity with a specific group of people that establishes borders around it and a membership program; all individuals are intertwined with others and this does not conform with national, cultural, or any other arbitrary borders. Society is the sum of it's parts. If social groups internally organize themselves hierarchically then the result would be a hierarchy. Governance isn't "dealing with issues", you don't need authority to deal with issues.

Rather than have us debate point-by-point, let's go straight to the crux of your argument and my opposition to it. You acknowledge that individuals in a society are 'intertwined'. Let me define that more explicitly and please let me know if and why you disagree.

Firstly, a society requires a collection of individuals. Where a collection is any number greater than one. Thus, a single individual cannot comprise a society in its entirety.

Second. The set of such individuals can be defined arbitrarily. As you point out, this need not require specific criterion such as national, cultural or borders. Rather, any collection of individuals, in any circumstance and occasion, can be a society.

Third. What distinguishes an individual as part of a society, is that an individual action can have consequences upon the society beyond the individual. You phrase this as a 'Society is the sum of it's parts', but this effectively means that our actions are not in total isolation of each other.

Given a society necessitates action which extends beyond the self, it naturally asks can such actions cause harm to other individuals in a society. Suppose not. That every individual action has no negative consequence on any individual that is not oneself. Then it is conceivable that we can exist free of intermediation. If you can drink water from a well of infinite depth, such action will never infringe on my own desire to drink from the same well. In such a society, where every individual action is free of consequence, we will never feel compelled to interact.

Now, we come to the terms, 'authority' and 'governance'. It is precisely because our actions have negative consequences, both morally and in part because we live in a world where there are finite resources, that a society necessitates collective decision making. Any form of collective decision making requires compliance. Collective decision making and compliance is a form of governance and authority. I am not completely free to act in ways that supersede your volition. My actions are limited by their consequences on you. How you define their consequences is determined at a societal level. Whether it be consequences that involve a bilateral or a multilateral set of individuals, any form of resolution between individuals is a form of governance (or control) which is subject to the authority of the governing structure comprising the individuals.

Thus, your real issue, is in the nature of some forms of governance and not absence of governance. The absence of governance in a society can only exist when society itself is inconsequential. As soon as we have consequence of action among two or more parties, resolution is a requirement that introduces governance and infringes on absolute freedom.

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