From: prs9k@brain.med.virginia.edu (Phil Scarr)
Subject: Re: Libertarianism...
Followup-To: alt.activism
Organization: Neuroclinical Trials Center, University of Virginia
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 02:54:07 GMT

In article <PA146008.588.725735293@utkvm1.utk.edu> PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu (David Veal) writes:
>In article <1992Dec30.121703.12761@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> prs9k@brain.med.virginia.edu (Phil Scarr) writes:
>
>>In article <168CC143D0.PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu> PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu (David Veal) writes:
>>>
>>>>Maybe we ought to
>>>>get together as a group and decide this.  Whoops, now we have a society
>>>>making decisions.
>>>
>>>          Society doesn't make decisions.  Society is not a discrete
>>>entity.  The group may reach a consensus, but the individuals come to
>>>a decision, and that's an important distinction.  Any logic which assumes
>>>that society has an existance outside of the individuals which comprise
>>>it of necessity must consider the society more important than the
>>>individual and thus invalidates *any* rights an individual may have.
>>
>>Can you touch a quark?  Have you actually SEEN a black hole?  No, but we
>>know these things exist because of the effects they have on other
>>visible bodies.  
>
>       We theorize they exist, but that's a different subject.

No, it is the SAME subject.  Read the paragraph again.  We are
discussing unobservable entities with observable results.

>
>>Society is much the same.  
>
>       Society is a catch-all term for the relationships of individuals.  
>Remove the individuals and you get nothing.  It is only by the actions of 
>individuals that societies do anything.

And take away society and there are NO INDIVIDUALS!!!  Have you ever
heard of the lupine children?  These are rare cases of children raised
by wild animals.  They have no sense of self apart from the packs they
traveled with (their societies).  It is a dialectical relationship, a
binary-star if you will.

>
>>It is not just a collection
>>of individuals because that simply begs the question where did these
>>individuals come from?  
>
>       From parents, usually. 

Biologically and SOCIALLY true.  Parents are often the primary
socializers in society, but when that relationship breaks down, children
are left to run wild.  Witness our inner cities where a breakdown of the
socialization process has produced a generation of poorly socialized
people.  In your scheme, they are just BAD INDIVIDUALS.  Society has no
bearing on their actions, they are just genetic defects.

>
>>I ask again, did you spring from the womb a
>>fully formed individual repleat with inalianable rights, or were you
>>made by society?
>
>       "Society" and all the individuals thereof certainly have had an 
>effect on me.  Did they make me?  No, they didn't.  

You underestimate the power of society.  It keeps you from sleeping with
your sisters and your mother.  It keeps you from eating your neighbors
dog.

>
>       When someone is born, they naturally gow up and learn from their 
>environment.

Who taught you to learn?  How did you learn to learn?  Is it genetic?
Did your parents read to you as a child?  Did you play with other
children?  All of these things are critical to your socialization.



> That doesn't make society, one portion of their environment, 
>and more a thinking, decision-making being than it makes the garden grass, 
>another portion of their environment, a thinking decision-making being.

How did you become this "thinking decision-making being"?  You still
haven't answered this to my satisfaction?  Did you spring forth fully
equiped to become what you are or did you learn to do what you do?  How
did you learn?  Who taught you?  Isn't this the very process of
socialization which you seem to deny?

>
>>Libertarianism has always seemed absurd to me because it is completely
>>blind to the nature of the individual.  It is a GIVEN that all people
>>are individuals in exactly the same way, something which social
>>anthropology and sociology have shown again and again to be a spurious
>>assumption.
>
>        I don't think Libertarianism assumes all individuals act in the same 
>way.  It assumes to a great extent coninciding goals and desires, but that 
       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>isn't a very large stretch.

And where do these coinciding goals and desires come from???  Society
maybe?

>
>>>>I give up.  Libertarianism is too confusing.
>>>
>>>          Not to give offense, but all I see here is argument, not
>>>any attempt at understanding.  And stating your inability to understand
>>>doesn't make it confusing.  I think your main problem is that you and
>>>the Libertarians are using the same words with different definitions.
>>
>>So please enlighten us as to these problem words.
>
>         Society, harm, government, etc.

Yes, those are words.  But why are they problems (apart from harm, I
suppose).

>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>David Veal               University of Tennessee Div. of Cont. Education
>                         Information Services Group
>PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu  (Mail to VEAL@utkvm1.utk.edu will bounce.)

	-Phil
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