[lbo-talk] Re: The Importance of Choice

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Mon Mar 15 16:26:09 PST 2004


BklynMagus wrote:
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> It is more than that. It is also the belief that individuals exist separately from others unless they choose not to. To me you cannot choose to be interconnected -- you are.

The way I have always expressed this (and I think I've used nearly these exact words a number of times on this list) is that wherever and whenever we find "ourselves," we are always already involved in action, i.e., in an ensemble of social relations apart from which we have no existence at all. An amoeba can be an individual. A glass tumbler can be an individual. I presume snails, roundworms, blacksnakes, frogs, box turtles, crows (but there it becomes a bit doubtful) can be individuals. I very much doubt that any of the primates can be individuals, and the concept of a human being an individual is obscene. To be an individual is to be a god, a lower animal, or an inanimate clod.

Carrol



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