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The social order

The phrase John uses instead of "society", following Lentz's argument that "society" hides hierarchies and inequalities.

Early context: John says the social order is usually the way it is for a reason but sometimes thinks mad things, such as covering lawns with thirsty inedible plants or judging people by their glasses. — Dec. 6th: Peer Pressure and the Green Green Manifesto 00:01:08

in-group term · in 19 videos, 2007–2026 · peak 2019 (3 videos) · still in use in 2026

Videos per year: 2007: 1 · 2012: 2 · 2016: 2 · 2017: 1 · 2018: 2 · 2019: 3 · 2020: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2026: 1

Every video

2007

date video use what is said
2007-12-06 Dec. 6th: Peer Pressure and the Green Green Manifesto 00:01:08 mention John says the social order is usually the way it is for a reason but sometimes thinks mad things, such as covering lawns with thirsty inedible plants or judging people by their glasses.

2012

date video use what is said
2012-05-15 Religion and Gay Marriage 00:01:30 mention John says many intersex people have married historically without the social order collapsing, but laws like North Carolina's just-voted one make it unclear whether they may marry anyone.
2012-12-04 Time for AWESOME 00:00:29 mention John says at Kenyon he kept thinking how privileged he is: his race, gender, sex and orientation are privileged by the social order, and he was outrageously privileged to attend a college with small classes and attentive professors.

2016

date video use what is said
2016-02-02 Is the Gender Pay Gap Real? 00:05:26 mention Much of the gap also comes from how the social order constructs gender and its expectations of women.
2016-04-12 On the Banning of Looking for Alaska 00:02:23 mention Recalling earlier videos, John says publicly funded learning exists primarily not for parents or even students but for the benefit of the social order.

2017

date video use what is said
2017-08-01 Death and How to Avoid It (...for a while) 00:00:39 mention John says wealth inequality is growing, though still low by historical standards, which is bad for the poor and for the social order because it inhibits economic growth and socioeconomic mobility.

2018

date video use what is said
2018-05-08 Old Man Yells at Cloud 00:03:00 mention John feels at times that this now happens across the social order, as if the internet has hacked healthy brains into obsessive checking machines.
2018-09-18 On the Participation Trophy 00:03:24 mention John doubts the social order should reinforce the idea that one person winning means another losing, because life is not a zero-sum game.

2019

date video use what is said
2019-08-13 How I (barely) Passed 11th Grade English 00:01:27 mention The Bluest Eye is about Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl told by the social order that she's ugly, who grows up horribly mistreated by people who claim to love her.
2019-09-17 'end the stigma' 00:00:29 mention When the social order sees someone as tainted and discounted, discrimination and isolation become much more common, especially for already discriminated groups.
2019-11-12 still learning 00:02:55 mention John says Holden doesn't get that the poem is about two adults hooking up because he isn't ready to, yet the social order, and arguably an adult in his life, treat him as if he is.

2020

date video use what is said
2020-03-03 Consciously Experiencing Human Dignity 00:01:27 mention John believes in acknowledging one's own human dignity and recognizing it in others, especially people told by the social order or power structures that their lives matter less.

2022

date video use what is said
2022-02-15 My Most Valuable Books 00:02:26 mention John says 'the social order' instead of 'society' because Lentz argues persuasively that 'society' obscures hierarchies and inequalities that 'the social order' captures.

2023

date video use what is said
2023-02-07 Mid-Morning Existential Crisis: The Format Returns 00:00:33 mention John says sufferers were told they were separate from the social order and less than fully human, yet also that they might be geniuses whose affliction was their superpower.

2024

date video use what is said
2024-03-26 I Own Danaher 00:01:09 mention John says poor communities, people with HIV (for whom quality testing is harder to access than it should be) and the social order do not benefit from the markup.
2024-08-27 How The Internet Is Rigged 00:05:40 mention John says it also harms the user-generated internet and the social order by concentrating capital and power in fewer hands, which history shows tends to work out terribly.

2025

date video use what is said
2025-06-24 Am I Cigarettes? 00:02:09 mention Like cigarettes, the internet harms not only heavy users but the social order at large, through second-hand smoke or second-hand internet.
2025-12-09 Hank Green, from A to Z 00:04:52 mention John says Hank has updated people on his life on X since 2008 and still posts and visits, though he knows it is bad for him and for the social order.

2026

date video use what is said
2026-03-24 How Panda Express Is Tuberculosis 00:03:29 mention John says TB is airborne and anyone can get it; today it is seen as a disease of poverty, but in the 18th century as anyone's disease, which is partly why it was romanticized.