What is obedience and is it vital today. Why?

Yes, go to a park and watch dogs being walked.

Absolutely it is: Sheepdogs cant herd effectively without obedience training to begin with

As this is asked in the Dog section of Y/`A`s I assume you mean dog obedience.

And yes it is vital to train a dog to be obedient in this day and age.

Why?

To have a untrained dog that just does as it likes can scare innocent people by jumping up on them, chasing them,  or even biting them.

This would be classed as a dangerous dog in the UK, and could be ordered to be destroyed.

A dog needs to learn to 100% `Recall, Leave, Stay, Sit, Down, Off, and walk calmly on a lead. 

Untrained dogs are a menace and unlikeable and give all dogs a bad name, and all because their owner can`t be bothered, or is too ignorant to train the dog.

        The laws on dog ownership are way to lax and should be drastically toughened up to make dog ownership harder and to help stop so many pet dogs being bred and ending up in rescue kennels. 

Dog ownership has exploded in the last 3 decades and anyone can just go and buy any dog, even if they have no knowledge of how to train and care for them. 

Its just not right. JMO.

Basic Obedience Training trains a dog in the 7 most used commands that all dog should know.  If you want an obedient dog, this training is a must.  Once a dog completes this training it can go on to Advanced Obedience Training. You can start training in some tricks at the end of the Basic training.  While training your dog you form a tighter bond.  All training needs to be reinforced periodically to keep the dog on its toes.

Dictionary is helpful if you don't know what it means.

Vital to WHAT?   Context is everything and you gave none.

I think that word and many you could put in its place are a bit to strong for the western 21st century. I believe in a hierarchy nonetheless. Nobody knows their place anymore, people can't even figure out their own genders, how are they gonna figure out anything else? People whine and react when they feel their freedoms are under threat, but in doing so they tend to disregard other peoples. With a population that grows at the closer end of 100 million every year, we can't afford to be that selfish. To many egos, to much pride... Human condition, tbh.