[lbo-talk] Bartels

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

Miles:
> The problem with this analysis is that intelligent behavior is also
> the product of these same forces.  Consider, for example, graduate
> studies in theoretical physics: they are under tremendous social
> pressure to think creatively and rigorously!  Power hierarchies and
> conformity socially produce intelligent people, too.  (Social forces
> expand human potential; they don't simply control or limit it!)

Absolutely.   I even thought about sending that caveat after I posted the
original message.  The devil is in the details, as they say.  The same
forces that produce bad thing also produce good things under a different set
of circumstances.  That if why "under what set of conditions?"  is probably
the most important question a social scientist should ask.  That is, btw, I
have in a rather low regard the theories that try to explain everything,
e.g. the neoclassical rat choice mode, the world systems approach or even
versions of Marx class analysis.

To follow you train of thought - society is the source of all good things
that we know - especially consciousness and knowledge, which would be
impossible without social organizations and cooperation.  Individual without
society would be no more than a feral animal - no culture, no consciousness,
no knowledge.  But society also produces perverted versions of
consciousness, knowledge, organization etc -- Aristotle already observed
that in his _Politics_ if memory serves.

Wojtek