Who Knows Best?

One of the more engaging cases we saw this week had all the elements of a classic Hong Kong gangster movie. It was a secret society trial, replete with harsh initiation rites, gang beatings, charismatic leaders and hapless victims.

The main differentiating factor though, was that the average age of the parties involved was 12, 13 years old.

At the trial's conclusion, the judge very sternly rebuked the kids, and forbade them from ever fraternizing with each other in school again. No meetings, no sitting together during recess, no hanging out after lessons. Nada. Zilch. A complete separation, break, split.

And that was what struck me the most.

See, the children were friends to begin with, even before the gang recruited them. They might still be friends now, even after the gang was dispersed.

But the court didn't care. The court, applying an objective standard, had decided that it was better for the children to stay apart, that it was in their best interests that they be separated, never to cross paths again. The standard was arguably a reasonable one, culled from years of academic research into the behavioural patterns of gang members, years of accumulated wisdom regarding child rearing, so on and so forth.

It didn't matter whether the children still wanted to be friends - the understanding was that they were too young or immature to decide what was best for themselves, and that society's neutral, passionless objective standard decried that they be isolated from one another.

Children grow up. We grow up too. Eventually.

Does a consensus distilled from the opinions of a thousand reasonable men always outperform an individual's own reasoned choice?

I wonder, is there ever a point when we are wise enough to choose our own paths, or will we always yield to society's collective wisdom?