I’ve always considered maturity to be when a person develops the understanding that there are other people in the world than themselves, and that those people are also important, and that one must think ahead for yourself and others. That’s pretty universal.<p>I’d say a society can only be considered sick to the extent that its members are incentivized to be immature by my definition- in other words to the extent that people within the society act in an anti-cooperative way and therefore the society attacks itself. Most often this happens because certain elements of society become parasitic on the rest. The parasitic portion will be the wealthiest and most powerful layer- the poor cannot become that way since they lack the power or influence to shape society to suit them.<p>In that situation the wealthy will seek to preserve their position by means of a priesthood or value system that says that what one should value is whatever the ruling class is doing, or that their position is divine, or whatever. So that’s how you end up with a sick society.