[lbo-talk] gore vidal is an old, cranky prick

[Chris Doss]

Nobody said that people were just physical objects, or that their existence as physical objects is not socially conditioned (although most of it isn't. That I can't walk through stone and cannot travel faster than light are not socially conditioned.). I'm not sure what society has to do with history anyway. If something has a past it has  a history, even if it is a rock. The point is that people are not "their histories." They are the confluence of their history; the present moment, in which they are located at a point in space; and their anticipated future. The toy penguin on my desk and the history of the toy penguin on my desk are not the same thing.

----- Original Message ----
From: "wrobert at uci.edu" <wrobert at uci.edu>
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Sent: Sat, October 31, 2009 1:05:40 AM
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] gore vidal is an old, cranky prick

Actually, our existence as physical objects is also profoundly socially
conditioned.  Simple questions of access to food and water have profound
social dimensions, as well as our environment (particularly during and
after the industrial revolution.)  These social factors have a fairly
profound effect on what our body is, and what it is capable of (This could
be expanded to discuss modes of labor, modes of kinship, etc.)  robert
wood
>
> We're not just physical objects.  We are people with identities, values,
> attitudes. and language, and all of those integral elements of our lives
> are the products of social interactions and social forces.  The banal
> statement that we have physical bodies does not change this basic social
> fact.
>
> Miles
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>
>

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