I wrote this thought last November while studying sociological theory and left it in my drafts. I wonder where I was going with this thought.
Societies are, for the most part, self-regulating. Each one determines what is and is not acceptable behavior in that society over and above what is written in law. These unwritten rules are what Durkheim calls social facts. They constrain us without us being conscious of them or even without them being explained to us. They are outside of us, and society enforces them through coercion: expectations, peer pressure, social punishment, and social rewards.