kelley wrote:
> . . . the chasm between agency and structure, micro and macro, self
> and society. it's a method that seeks to delineate what Mills argued was
> the fundamental task of sociology: it "enables us to grasp history and
> biography and the relations between the two within society." [the
> relationship b/t character and culture, self and society iow]
Perhaps, for me, there is a problem in imagination. I simply cannot imagine -- image, grasp concretely -- what you mean by "chasm between agency and structure." Is there some way in which you can make that intelligible to me? Because until I can somehow image, imagine, something it, I can't react, pro or con, to arguments attempting to bridge it. A chasm implies two different things -- at least two different banks of the river -- and I can't see either agency or structure independently. Nor can I see how, in this case, abstraction helps. And when you move to character and culture, I'm really lost. How can one discuss a relationship between the same thing with different names? Unless you have a positivist conception of character -- i.e., character is the nervous system of a particular organism? No. That is nonsense. So what do you mean?
Carrol