On Thu, 5 Dec 2002 topp8564 at mail.usyd.edu.au wrote:
>
> I was just rather shocked that you [CC] should react to the idea that
love
> involves social relations of power by quipping that social relations are
> impersonal. In my view, it takes a concerted effort to render relations
> impersonal and such an effort only really changes what it is to be a
> person in such circumstances. (In my mind right now is the Stanford
> Prison Experiment.)
>
>
> Thiago Oppermann
Zimbardo (and I) would argue that you misunderstand the results of the SPE. The results actually undermine your position, as I understand what you're arguing. It is not necessary to understand the specific subjectivities of the individuals in the social roles of prisoners and guards to effectively predict their behavior: you simply need to know who is in which social position in a social structure. The "subjectivity" of the guard is irrelevant to the analysis of the social structure of the prison. --And so in any social situation: the general patterns of behavior are not the product of unique subjectivities; rather, the individuals are products of the demands of the social positions they occupy.
Miles