do you honestly think that sociologists think they are anything but social relations. do you think a woman who has repeatedly talked about how property is a set of set relations that define for us how to act and treat people, things, and ideas is someone who holds a theory that values exist "out there" free of society.
fuckmedead dead dead dead!
now, where you'll get pissed is how the social interaction rituals which shape this social relation we call property is _thoroughly_ fucking laden with values.
it is old, but i'll use it again. Walk over to someone bum a cigarette and then don't smoke it. Or, go ask you neighbor to borrow the lawn mower and then don't mow your lawn. strap it to the roof of you car, turn it on, and then sit in the car drinking beer and rocking out like it produced music.
if you neighbor doesn't call the looney bin on yah, he'll probably figure out how to get hi freakin lawn mower back because you aren't USING it. if you borrow something, you're supposed to use it. bum a smoke (which is not borrowing, but asking for a hand out) and totally acceptable in this society b/c people think that the person who bums a smoke _needs_ one desperately and so, they share, identifying with the feel of _needing_ a smoke. (I can't think of any other form of property we can literally bum legitimately -- without being thought of as a panhandler-- at the moment. anyone else?)
And all through this interaction ritual, where you broke the NORMS (look it up, they're about values) we all share about what to do with something you borrowed, values were communicated to you and your neighbor. You broke a value and he will likely let you know. Either to your face, or by calling the cops, or the looney bin. or, he'll just talk bad about you and get others to see you as a bad person. When those values are profaned -- by breaking them -- your neighbor gets pissed. and, if you're breaking them knowingly, even as an experiment, you'll will feel guilty and embarrassed and your face may even turn red -- without even an audience to judge you for your violation of the norms. because you've internalized the values of this society. (and if you don't, you belong to another group which has enforced for you a different set of values and to which you turn as a reference group. you can even pick up such reference groups by participating on email lists. reading literature and participating in imaginary communities such as sci fi traditions, etc.)
now, repeat these kinds of things over and over again and -- voila! -- we have an idea where values come from. society. and, i have described society as some thing, but as everyday ordinary practices and interactions that go on all the time -- it's embodied this "society".
other societies, with different norms governing the social relations that we call property, will do things quite differently. there is always some kind of property system in a society, in this view. this is because those norms will reflect different values.
though, some people have argued that we can reduce all of this down to some basics: the sacred and profane. the sacred is society (or in contemp western societies) the individual) and the profane is that which is the ordinary or mundane. this in turn has to do with how we spend our lives, moving between groups that are relatively cohesive and solidaritstic and dense in social ties (families might be a good example, or created communities like the gay community, this list might be thought of as one, though there are other lists that are much more solidaristic --- and my observation is this is because they talk about their personal lives much more often)
anyhooty, this is also a roundabout and disjointed, quickly typed off, answer to Gar.
I was going to reply to gar and type as my first line:
"Look Gar, fuck you all to hell, you dick. This list is full of a bunch of egotistical assholes who engage in nothing but ironic self observation, where oneupmanship is the highest values, and no one gives rat's about anything of important. So, you know, fuck off.
and then, show you how this list and our ritualistic interactions generates various kinds of values we hold about discourse, the individuals who participate here, what is appropriate to the convo, how we punish people who violate those norms, how we uphold the sanctity of the individual, even those of us who criticize individualism, and on and on.
yes, even in the disembodied space of an email list, we generate solidarity and values -- though always contested values, of course. which is not surprising given the highly differentiated experiences we all have in a very complex society where no two of us every experience the same things, live in the same groups, go to the same schools, live in same neighborhoods, etc. etc.
Anyway, I'm gonna go celebrate. It's FRIDAY!!!!!!!
Kelley
"Finish your beer. There are sober kids in India."
-- rwmartin