When do they all “agree to the same things?” This is never the case. We coordinate because we desire different things; it presupposes voluntary and mutually beneficial exchange. It is precisely because we are individuals, that we have different skill sets and desires, that exchange even takes place. Why I’m willing to trade my oranges for your apples, why some teach children, and others clean the streets. Individualism is the source of coordination, it determines society–not the other way around. This is one major error in Marxian theory; it attempts to create the collective man.
A man can voluntarily abandon society, but that does not mean that he was no apart of society at a time. Socialization is an important part of being truly human.
Influencing an individual does not eliminate his existence as an individual. The weather influences individuals; what’s your point?
Is there a problem?
Yes.
If man shits on a toilet in China at precisely the same exact time as I do in America, do we temporarily become one. Are we temporarily seeking the same ends? Are we temporarily a part of our own sub-culture? The culture of shitting on toilets?
And yet you cleanly avoid the issue of mob behavior, and group-think as if they are not real things.
That man is not an island! Seriously, did you not bother to read the fact that I am not denying that individuals exist, but only the fact that thinking of “The Individual” is nonsense because man is apart of a social framework that constantly influences his behavior, and identity?
I do not see how that has anything to do with what I have stated.
The best, most recent example that I’ve been learning about were totalitarian movements. Now, Mussolini and Hitler and Stalin were very different incarnations of similar principles. Namely, that the masses can be organized under certain ideas. They can be made to believe similar things to the point where their behavior becomes almost synchronized. In Nazi Germany, the meme was pan-Germanic supremacy where the individual German was only “saved” if he were a member of the Nazi party. That through numbers, they found power and salvation. How can we explain this except through the realization that man is both a collective and a set of individuals? Some people put collective before individual. How can we explain this if the collective doesn’t exist?
This thread was originally about the group psychology of liberty vs. conformity. If we’re going to ask “why don’t people want liberty?” The other implied question must be “what do they want instead?” I think that conformity carries with it a strong incentive, namely not having to think, not having to be responsible, not having to get things for oneself. This wouldn’t be possible if humans weren’t a collective.
You’re trying to convince people they’re only individuals, but you have nothing but philosophy on your side. I mean you’re much more knowledgeable about economic than I am. Explain bank runs. Explain bubbles. Aren’t those self-reinforcing group behaviors?
I can’t resist.
Doublethink!
How does this explain your position? You’re not saying that sometimes individuals act in groups; you’re saying that individualism is illusory. Lending without receiving interest does not invalidate the time-preference theory of interest.
Knight,
Just to be clear, I do not disagree that it is the individual alone who possesses the distinct authority and freedom, indeed the responsibility, to say ‘no’ to ‘the collectivist garbage of religion and the state’.
Where I personally make a distinction between ‘religion’ (small ‘r’) and Religion (capital ‘R’) and whether a collectivist mentality is or can be properly held and morally good is in the theological realm. In other words, what do I believe God has told me is truthful, correct and/or obligatory in Scripture? If ‘religion’ is operating under the guise and rubric of ‘Religion’ and is using this as a pretense for, say, some legalistic doctrine (as has been and is sometimes done), I will reject it for I am free from the chains and restraints of legalism. However, if ‘Religion’ tells me it is morally good and imperative to ‘submit to my wife’ where proper (This is one just example of where I would ‘buy into’ the collective mentality, as I am using it here), I would (even though I am PHYSICALLY distinct from her. The essence of marriage, at least Biblically understood, is a SPIRITUAL UNION. Hence my using it in this sense). But, if a collective as in a group of people is being used, for example, as the pretense for the legislation of, say, the euphamism “Healthcare” reform, I would say “Bull”! The State acting as the agent of force for the collective in this sense is morally wrong and misguided for a number of reasons.
The disconnect here is between the thought and the act. You’re not coordinating your behavior or your thoughts based on this other person’s actions. If you were, then we could begin to see a trend of groupthink. If more and more people began to follow your example, we would then see a better illustration of the arbitrary manner in which mass manipulation can be accomplished. The concept of herd behavior, as Lam points out, is that everyone can influence everyone else. We’re not islands, totally separate from the mainland. At least I’m not.
This is simply the attempt to dehumanize man, and, as we’ve seen, it failed miserably.
Individuals acting in their best interests. Individual’s acting together doesn’t mean that they’re not individuals.
Yep. You were wrong, and I pointed it out. Simple. Don’t you like brevity?
Next time: think before you post.
Then you cannot use the word “I”. Stop using it.
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But the fact that it could be done at all should tell us something. Right?
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I never said it did. I’m saying that we do see individuals acting together seemingly in concert. That they influence one another. Thus no man is an island.
Moreover, I don’t think that just because I can acknowledge the existence of the collective and of society as a group phenomenon that I therefore become convinced that the use of overly collectivist systems as a means of organizing society are necessary or proper. It just means I’m acknowledging something that clearly exists. I don’t even know why we’re arguing about this to be honest, these things are self evident to me.
Then you agree that the contest isn’t solely between religion and the state. Good.
I make no such distinction.
Actually, he’s showing that reifying the concept of society is wrong. That you have yet to learn what logical fallacies are is your problem.
Don Quixote, you are tilting at windmills.
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It couldn’t. There were counter-revolutionaries.
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Indeed, humans can be forced into action through coercion and violence. All this means is that coercion and violence attempts to dehumanize humanity. Which is why coercion causes so much uneasiness and leads to violent reactions.
Influencing each other is one thing, but denying them altogether is another thing.
O god, you’re like a ideological juggernaut with tunnel vision.