[lbo-talk] Paradise Now and Munich

[boddi satva]

One of the most interesting experiences I had on the Dean campaign was
getting a sample of the thinking of the group as it evolved and
watching it be reflected on the Blog. As the campaign got bigger there
would be days when sometimes dozens of people would call with the same
idea for the campaign. They would range from people who were
thoughtful and reticent and had clearly been thinking for some time
and people who were a little nuts and called the moment they had an
excuse.

What was interesting is tha the people had clearly come up with the
idea separately and on their own. But because the Dean campaign had
this rhetorical center on the blog it made it very likely that people
would come up with the same concept from different angles and often
express it in very unique ways and that made it all the more
intriguing. I concluded that people are not "herd" thinkers by and
large but that the "herd" creates a path of least resistance and
people's sense of that path makes some ideas resonate much more loudly
than others.

boddi

On 12/27/05, Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> wrote:
> Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> >
> > Since both Said and Khaled make personal decisions embedded in their
> > shared culture (in which family and friendship mean a lot) and  history
> > (of the occupation), the film can't contrast one as making an
> > individual moral choice and the other as following a herd.
>
> Even further: the distinction between "herd mentality" and "individual
> moral choice" is dubious, because, the meaning of every individual
> action or thought emerges as a product of social relations.  Even to
> make a moral choice requires that you participate in and accept certain
> moral guidelines that you have learned; thus an individual moral choice
> is a product of sociality, not something independently generated by the
> rugged individual removed from "the herd".
>
> --Moreover, (and I have to admit I love the delicious irony of this),
> when Woj posits an obvious and clear delineation between "herd" thinking
> and "individual" thinking, he is repeating a trope that is more of less
> blindly accepted by almost everyone in our society: "I think for myself,
> and it's pathetic how those
> liberals/conservatives/feminists/fundamentalists all just believe what
> they're told".  Thus one of the most vivid examples of "herd mentality"
> in our society is the naive belief that the autonomous individual is
> capable of making "individual moral choices" without any influence from
> the "herd".
>
> Miles
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