[lbo-talk] Cognitive dissonance

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Thu Jan 18 10:12:10 PST 2007


Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Can't you just read this as two complementary perspectives? The
> systemic stuff you're talking about has to operate on and through
> actual people. So the "personal" contributions are just specific
> instances of systemic forces. And we're so programmed with the norms
> of our society that the systemic aspect is perpetuated by the sum of
> millions of individual experiences.

Yes. But go a little further. "Personal contributions" are (a) only relevant and (b) only knowable when a particular person is the issue. As soon as you want to consider the society, personal contributions become irrelevant and trivial (because tautological).

Carrol



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