anyway, seriously, what i mean is: while the philosophical debate boils down to one of essence underneath the social or not, sociologists elided the debate by saying, "oh! what we think of as this unique substrate that is pre-social, is actually very social. it's the result of the rise of an ever more complex society in which we increasingly think of ourselves as unique little snowflakes. and yet we are permeated through and through by society, Turns out that this is actually a _effect of _ (_instrument-effect of_) society itself. more complex society is, the more and more the ideology of individualism takes hold the more and more we think of ourselves as having the special place, like this rock we stand on, that is not socialized.
individuation, baby. individuation.
discussion of that theory kinda went out of style b/c it was associated with structural-functionalism, which became increasingly discredited. but the basic concepts remains, we just started using different words for DOL, individuation, etc.
At 05:34 PM 7/28/2008, Seth Ackerman wrote:
>>although
>>this determination is by no means total or unilateral.
>
>...in the same sentence. How can our ability to engage with the world be
>"completely" socially determined, yet at the same time this determination
>can be "by no means total"?
a quickie coz i have a bunch of crap to do. in sociology, the terms we have devised to speak about this are socialization and individuation.
we are completely social determined, but because of the complex dvision of labor (for just one example) society is very complex. the more complex society becomes, the more likely i'm going to have very unique -- individuated -- experiences that will shape me.
in other words, living in a less complex society, i will only have so many different types of experience. only one set of religious rites to attend. in a more complex society, that's not the case.
in which case, although we are all socialized, this complexity increasingly makes us feel extremely individuated.
You went to Cornell?
Really?
Wow?
And then there is an exchange of 'remember whens' or experiences that are often common (the clock for example). and yet, someone who goes to the history department will experience cornell slightly differently than someone in the lit department than someone in the vet school than someone at the ag school etc.
(and this extreme individuation, the argument goes, is was also pushed us into the whole phenom of things like blogging, facebook, as places to display that individuated existence collectively so we can be unique snowflakes.
just like everybody else.
so, in another subdiscipline of sociology, we have a way of accounting for this phenom. I gotta run now but maybe robert and miles can relate this to foucault in a way i can't. i don't have books and i feel really bad not pulling quotes as illustration.
shag
>I understand the difficulty with this point, since it's a variation on an
>old philosophical conundrum that is hard to answer definitively. I'm
>content with the observation that the extent to which our ability to
>engage with the world is socially determined is "by no means total."
>
>Seth
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