From: VEAL@utkvm1.utk.edu (David Veal)
Subject: Re: Libertarianism...
Organization: University of Tennessee Division of Continuing Education
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 17:34:21 GMT

In article <1992Dec31.145222.10532@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> prs9k@brain.med.virginia.edu (Phil Scarr) writes:

>In article <168CE38F.PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu> PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu (David Veal) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec31.025407.21682@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
>>prs9k@brain.med.virginia.edu (Phil Scarr) writes:
>>
>>>>       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.
>>
>>        I'm not sure what your point is.  I'm not arguing that society
>>as a concept does not exist, but rather that it has no existance outside
>>the individual actions which comprise it.  Your suggestion is that were
>>infer the existance of society by viewing the reactions of individuals
>>to it in much the same way we infer the existance of a black hole by
>>view the X-Ray emmisions or gravity distortions of a black hole.  Take
>>away the gravity waves and the X-Rays and you've still got a black hole.
>>Take away the interactions of the individuals and you have no society.
>
>This is incorrect.  If you take away the gravity waves and the X=Rays
>you most certainly do NOT have a black hole.  These are the phenomena by
>which WE KNOW OF THE BLACK HOLES EXISTANCE!!!!  

       Look, operating under the assumption black holes exist, they exist
independently of the means by which we detect them, whether or not we
can see them independently.  We may use an observation to theorize the
existance of a black hole, but that doesn't make the observation the same 
thing as the black hole, or the black hole dependent on the observation.

>If you eliminate these
>phenomena, the thing ceases to exist.  

	Our knowledge of the thing might cease to exist, but a black hole is 
more than simply the effects it has on other things.  A thing exists whether 
we are aware of it or not.

>This is exactly my point about
>society.  While there can be no society without individuals, YOU CANNOT
>HAVE INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT SOCIETY!  

	You can't have interacting individuals without a society.  But so
what?  Society exists among interacting individuals because that's what the 
word means.  That doesn't give it objective existance outside the 
individuals which comprise it.  You don't, after adding in individuals over 
a period of time, all of a sudden get a group mind that it over and above 
the individuals.  All actions and decisions of a society are the results of 
individual actions and decisions.

>I can't make it any plainer than
>that.  The old adage "No Man is an Island" is a fundamental social
>truism.  You cannot exist without other people.

	Of course I can.  I won't like it.  I don't want to do it, but it's 
a possibility.  However, I again don't see your point.  

>>>And take away society and there are NO INDIVIDUALS!!!
>>
>>       Individuals produce societies, not the other way around.  An existing
>>set of societal relationships certainly has an impact on an individual, but
>>society does nothing.  *People* do things.  Individuals do things.  You
>>can't have a society without individuals, but you can have individuals
>>without a society.
>
>How can you have individuals without a society?  Where would these
>mystery people come from?  This is absurd!

	Any time individuals interact with each other you have something 
that by definition is a society.  It is incorrect to assume, though, that
because individuals create societies that societies also create individuals.
Individuals are material things, and don't depend on their existance on
what is essentially an immaterial thing.  *AN* individual may exist 
independent of a society.  It is only when those individuals come together 
that a society is created.

>> You can't have individuals interact without some
>>form of society, because by interacting they form a society.  If you
>>have individuals who do not interact (practically unlikely) you have
>>individuals without a society.
>
>It never happens, it never has and it never will because BIOLOGICALLY
>HUMANS ARE SOCIAL!!!  Sheesh.

	One wonders then, where the concept of the hermit came from.
People are social critters, to be sure.  But their existance is not
dependent on social structures.  We are shaped and molded and guided,
but society does not represent all that we are.  It can't.

>>        Society exists by the act of interaction between individuals.
>>That is the only way that it exists.  The lupine children you speak
>>of interacted with other individuals, even if they were animals with
>>a highly developed social structure.
>
>Again you have failed to comprehend my point.  These children's
>individualism (actually, they had no sense of self according to the
>reports) WAS SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED BY THE WOLVES just as YOUR
>individualism is SOCIALL CONSTRUCTED by American society (providing you
>are an american).  

	Since I can't go back and alter my life, that's a difficult thing to 
disprove.  All I can say is American society has never struck me as all that 
geared toward individualism.  

>I can guarantee you, and I can give you lots of
>ethnographic references to prove this, that an individual in the
>Highlands of Papua-New Guinea has a fundamentally different sense of his
>individuality than you do.

	An individual the next door down has a fundementally different snes 
of individuality than I do.  I don't deny that my environment has shaped 
me.  I do deny that it is responsible for everything that I.  There is more 
to me than grade school or social structures.

>You make the fundamental libertarian mistake of equating the biological
>individual with the social individual and saying that they are the SAME
>THING.  They are not.  Never have been.  It is a philosophical position
>with no basis in fact.  You can point to yourself as a discrete
>biological entity (as can I), but THAT DOES NOT DEFINE YOUR SOCIAL
>PERSON.

	What does define my social person?  Do *I* the biological entity
have any say in this matter, *ever*?  Or am I just along for the ride?  Is 
there *ever* a time where it is possible for me to examine some matter of 
socialization and discard it on a rational basis, or am I solely a 
programmed thing with no will of my own, and even my typing this message is 
something that society has molded me to do and I have no will at all?

>>>Biologically and SOCIALLY true.
>>
>>        I am not suggesting that society does not exist, or that it
>>does not have an impact on the people that comprise it.  Society is
>>created by interactions, and those interactions are going to affect
>>the individuals which make up a society.  However it is inaccurate
>>to state that society alone has done something, because at the root
>>of every sociatal action is an individual action.  Influenced by
>>other interactions to be sure, but the decision of an individual.
>
>Of course, society is composed of its constituent units: human beings.
>You have, in fact, just proven my point: it is through social
>reproduction that we know that society exists.  

	Again, I don't deny the existance of society.

>Why do you speak the
>language your parents, friends and neighbors speak?  

	Because that's the one they taught me and the one necessary to get 
along, get a job, go to school, and feed myself.  Are you suggesting that 
because nobody I know speaks arabic that it would be impossible for me to 
learn it?

>Why do you wear the
>clothes you do?  Why do you drive the car you do?  All these things have
>come down to you through socialization over the years.  I have never
>denied that society is composed of individuals, only that denial of the
>social reality is a libertarian blind-spot.

	I have not denied society.  I deny that everything a human being is 
is dictated soley by socialization.  There is more to people than that.  

>>>people.  In your scheme, they are just BAD INDIVIDUALS.  Society has no
>>>bearing on their actions, they are just genetic defects.
>>
>>        Again, I don't deny that society has an impact.  But society
>>is only another way of saying all the individuals and their actions which
>>make up a group.  When you say "Society did x" you are saying that the
>>individuals which make up that society decided to do x.
>
>Well then I guess we agree that (1) society exists, (2) society is
>composed of Human Beings, and (3) society has impact upon
>individualistic realities.  Gee, that's a far cry from your original "I
>am an island and society doesn't have any bearing on MY life" postion.

	I did not say that, and I did not imply that.  *Originally* I said
that society has no existance independent of the individuals which comprise 
it, and no rights, because if societies have rights, then individuals have 
none.  Go back and reread it.  

>>        The problem you speak of is a socialization problem.  The problem
>>is not failure to conform to "society" as an independent entity, but
>>failure to conform to the normal interactions the individuals which
>>comprise that society have come to exect.
>
>Gee, no kidding!  :)  Again, you continue to prove my points.  

	Not as long as you continue to consider society as independent and
greater than the individuals which comprise it.

>All you
>need to do is recognize that, because of continual social reproduction
>(i.e. society continues to reproduce itself through individuals through
>time), it must exist in some real fashion.

	Anytime individuals interact, you have a society.  Wipe all the
minds of the individuals clean, and make them start over, and you have a new 
society.  Society grows from individual interactions, at it's origin.  From 
then on it perpetuates itself, but the individuals do come first.  Unless 
you believe we are socialized in some manner before we exist.

>>        And in some cases, they are just bad people.  In some other
>>people bear part of the blame.  To simply place the blame on "society"
>>cheapens the victims, triviales the crime, and shifts the blame from
>>the individuals which are responsible to the faceless mass which can
>>neither take the blame, nor understand the problem.
>
>Why does blaming society cheapen the victim and trivialize the crime?

	Because it denies tham any power over their life.  To say that 
"society did this to you" puts them in the position of being totally subject 
to the whims of a mammoth, faceless creature they can neither know, nor 
fight, when it has been the individuals they have deal with in their life, 
their parents, teachers, friends, strangers on the street, who have impacted 
their life, not some farmer on the other end of town that is part 
of "society" by somebody has never met.

>If anything it does the opposite!  Look at the Rodney King beating and
>tell me it was just 6 "bad individual cops" who did the beating and not
>a series of social ills which generated the beating and the response
>which followed.  

	Those social ills certainly provided an environment where an event 
could take place, but each and every blow was delivered by a human being, 
who could have, had he chosen to, stopped at any moment.  If he could not 
have, then we have no basis on which to condemn or punish him.  
	And what has happened?  Society gets blamed?  What does that do 
besides allow all the involved parties to absolve themselves of blame by 
blaming "society" which can neither be captured nor punished.  Society can't 
beat anybody.  Individual people raising their fists to another human being 
can, for which they are, and must be held, responsible.

>What you saw in Los Angeles were individual actors
>engaged in perpetrating a social crime.

	Individual actors who could have chosen to lay aside their scripts.
Individual actors who could have chosen another course.  What I saw in Los 
Angeles were crimes commited by individuals who easily lay the blame for 
their actions at society's feet in order absolve themselves of 
responsibility.

>>>You underestimate the power of society.
>>
>>         I am not a programmed automaton.
>
>Actually you are.  We all are.  There is not much use in denying social
>reality.  

	The my programming is beyond my ability to control entirely?  I am
*nothing* more than a set of preconditioned social responses, *incapable* of 
acting in any other manner than what I have been programmed for?
	What a cold, horrible world that would be. 

>The Highlanders of PN-G are programmed, the Maya in Guatemala
>are programmed, the Nuer in the Sudan are programmed.  But we are all
>also the programmers!  That's the point.  We are both programmer and
>programmed.  I like that analogy.  Kind of self-writing software.  We're
>all big CASE tools!!!  :)  But I digress.

	If we are capable of writing our own programs, then can we really 
shift blame from ourselves to society?  If the LA Cops could re-write their 
own programs, could *they* have not done so rather then commit a crime 
society apparently wanted them to?

>>>It keeps you from sleeping with
>>>your sisters and your mother.  It keeps you from eating your neighbors
>>>dog.
>>
>>         Those are societal norms, which I accept.  There are other
>>societal norms which I don't accept.
>
>Mark this date on your calander, folks.  An admintence of societal norms
>which have IMPACT and RESTRICTION on a libertarian. :)  So much for the
>stone wall of individuality.

	I'm not a libertarian, although I like a lot of their positions.
Acceptance of societal norms is as much an individual act as rejecting them, 
because by accepting them you recognize that you *can* reject them.

>> There is much I have been
>>taught both in and out of school which I have then or later discarded.
>>I do not suggest society has no impact on what I or others do.  Clearly
>>it does.  But I will not accept it as the sole determinant of my actions.
>					   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>No one said it was.  I said it is a TWO SIDED COIN.  Individual/Society.
>You can't have one without the other.

	Individuals are the basis of society.  If it's a coin, it's a 
lopsided one.

>>That simply denies all of us any free will, and makes all of this,
>>this discussion, this life, everthing simply a set of programmed
>>instructions we cannot change.  That route leaves no reason to live, and
>>I won't go down it.  Societal conditioning makes certain decisions more
>>difficult, but it does not render us incapable of taking action against
>>it.  By reason or sheer stubborness each person is capable of making
>>their own decisions even when the contradict societal norms.
>
>No, society gives us ALL a reason to live.  

	Society gives us someone to blame when we don't want to blame 
ourselves.  It's not *my* fault that such and such is wrong.  Society is to 
blame.  It's not the cop's fault, it's society's fault.  It's not the rioter'
s fault, it's society's fault.
	And that's bull.  Whatever the impact society has on use, if we have 
free will we are capable of doing other than what "society" dictates, which 
is why we acknowledge that people *can* commit crimes.  If it was all 
society's fault then it would be a waste of time to hold an individual 
responsible for his or her actions.

>I am an athiest.  I don't
>believe in the supernatural.  

	What exactly does that have to do with anything?

>What I believe in is PEOPLE.  All kinds of
>people.  In my world, people are basically good and caring (of course if
>I lived in NYC or LA, I might feel differently), but they get taught
>through our society to NOT be.  

	To reverse the question, where did society learn to be cruel and 
uncaring?  People are selfish critters, who do try to good.  If people were 
basically good and caring we wouldn't have to work so hard teaching children 
to share or be nice to one another.

>Much of the grubbing and scraping you
>see in the world, much of the corruption and evil, HAS TO BE TAUGHT BY A
>CORRUPTED SOCIETY.  

	Corrupted by what?  How did this society get started if all the 
people in it are so nice and caring?  Was it simply one abberation that led 
the gentle sheep astray?  Why did society not revert back once that 
aberration was gone?

>Capitalism is not a natural state any more than
>communism is.  Both are sets of learned behaviors.  LEARNED BEHAVIORS,
>not part of nature.

	The natural state is to have the biggest person in the group beat 
all the other people in the group until they give him their food, women, and 
loyalty.  Nature does not concern itself my with social structures.  It 
worries more about survival.

>>>>       When someone is born, they naturally gow up and learn from their
>>>>environment.
>>>
>>>Who taught you to learn?
>>
>>          Learning, I would expect, is a pretty standard thing
>>that comes with the package of being aware of your surroundings and
>>capable of remembering your past.
>
>Not really.  Different people in different societies learn in radically
>different ways.  Anthropologists have shown that different societies,
>for instance, don't distinguish between the colors blue and green.  They
>just don't do it.  But they have 3 different words for very close shades
>of red.  Even COLOR is socially constructed and learned.  This doesn't
>mean that the BIOLOGICAL humans in that society cannot PHYSICALLY
>distinguish between blue and green, just that the distinction HAS NO
>SOCIAL MEANING.  Ergo, the distinction doesn't exist.

	I suppose we're getting into deep philosophical questions, but
did the distinction not exist, or was it simply unimportant?  If everybody
around you chooses not to differentiate between blue and green, does that 
mean there is no difference or that nobody cares about the difference?  You 
seem to be suggesting that societal norms are capable dictating at what 
wavelength a certain object reflects light, and that's silly.  Whether they 
choose to acknowledge a difference, the difference is there.  It would seem
that if society made primary decisions about colors for us, people who grow 
up in close proximity should have similar views of colors, and many don't.  
People disagree all the time about particular shades of red or green.

>>> How did you learn to learn?
>>> Is it genetic?
>>
>>         It is a natural effect from remembering the past.  When
>>you take an action, and it has undesirable consqeunces, you know
>>not to repeat the same action next time.  What makes humans superior
>>to animals in classic conditioning is that we have the ability to
>>override that.  We can reason independently that this or that action
>>is a good idea, and go against what we have learned.  That is free will.
>
>Not really.  It is the ability to LEARN which distinguishes us from the
>animals (well, one of the things).  

	Learn, as opposed to being conditioned?  You seem to be suggesting 
that society conditions us and thereby controls our responses.  We train 
dogs and horses all the time.  Is there not some element of learning 
involved, there?

>Why do you thing human beings
>nurture their children so long?  Most societies keep kids around for at
>least 14 years before they are considered adults (some, like ours, keep
>kids around for 21 years or even more!).  Why is this?  So they can
>become SOCIALIZED!  So they can learn from their parents and from other
>people in their society how to be productive members in that society.
>It has NOTHING to do with "free will".

	They have no choice in the matter, eh?  All those parents in our 
country who throw their kids out onto the street are just products of failed 
socialization.  Somebody failed to program them properly.

>>>Did your parents read to you as a child?  Did you play with other
>>>children?  All of these things are critical to your socialization.
>>
>>       So?  I've been socialized.  Probably not as well as some would
>>like, but so what?  I operate inside societal norms becuase that's the
>>way life works and I'm stuck with this society.  Are you suggesting
>>that everything I do is dictated by my socialization?  Is there
>>nothing of David Veal here at all?
>
>Of course there is.  My mother and I fight constantly about this stuff.
>I am an anthropologist who favors the nurture stuff, she is a
>psychologist who favors the nature side.  What we have done is achieved
>a kind of consensus about how this stuff works.  

	Then I suppose you better let us, the poor socialized programmed
masses, know.

>In a nutshell, society
>and biology conspire to both limit and expand the individuals POTENTIAL
>and POSSIBILITIES.  Society doesn't dictate that you become a computer
>programmer or an astronaut, but rather it presents you with OPTIONS.

	And you have nothing to with making your own options?

>The more options the better.  Other societies have fewer options
>available.  For instance, that highlander from P-NG doesn't have the
>option to be a truck driver for several reasons.  First, it is
>impractical in the highlands to drive a truck, and second, there are no
>trucks available.  Very simple.  His options, like those of his fathers,
>and his fathers fathers are to be a farmer or a ritual leader.  That's
>about it.  You and I on the other hand, have LOTS of options available
>to us.  These options are what libertarians mistake for "free will".

	Free will is the ability to take what life gives you and do with it 
what you choose to do.  I'm not sure what you mean by mistaking something 
for free will.  

>You can chose among these options and in our society you can either sink
>or swim.  But if you're 5'1", you aren't going to play guard on the
>Chicago Bulls, no matter HOW much you protest about your "Free Will".
>It isn't an option which is available to you.

	I don't recall suggesting that free will could change reality by its 
existance.  I have said that societal conditioning can be rewritten or 
ignored in making choices, *if* we choose to do so.  I almost get the 
feeling you're arguing with somebody else I'm not aware of.

>>       I'm not denying socialization, or the impact of society.  I am
>>denying it as the sole motivator of human behavior, and as an independent
>>entity which can make decisions independent of the individuals which
>>comprise it.
>
>I think I've covered this bit already.

	I'm beggining to wonder if I was there...

>>>And where do these coinciding goals and desires come from???  Society
>>>maybe?
>>
>>        Individuals.  Where individuals agree, society moves forward.
>
>Still buying into that Hobbesian "BODY POLITIC" model, eh?  It's a lot
>more complex than that.  Society to individual to society to individual.
>It's a dialectic.

	Society came from somewhere.  The definition of society is 
interactions among human beings.  At some point in the past a group of 
humans started interacting and formed a society.  It's plain silly to 
suggest society formed and humans appear to interact within it.

>>Society can't make a decision if the individuals involved make another
>>one.  The members of society may have shared goals, which society then
>>pursues.  New members of society (children) may not share those goals
>>and when they grow up they change them.  In your society dominated
>>view advancement and changing attitudes would be impossible, because
>>each generation would accept and follow the dictates of society through
>>the socialization process and never question them.
>
>No.  Not true at all.  Mine is a BALANCED view of individual achievement
>and societal reproduction.  YOURS is the position with no balance, no
>ability to see its own faults.

	Well, we've established your arguing from a position you believe
*has* no faults.  I also get the impression your arguing against something 
I'm not saying.

>>       They do, eventually.  History is full of men and women who
>>went against their socialization, for good or ill.
>
>Of course it is.  No one would deny that.  But they are the exception
>which prove the rule: History remarks upon them BECAUSE they were so
>exceptional.  While everyone else is going about being good memebers of
>their societies, these people stood up and said "HEY! Cut that out!" or
>something to that effect.  It is their exceptionality which makes my
>point EXACTLY!!!

	My point is that they prove that socialization is not iron-clad.
Because *they* can set it aside, others can set it aside.  That they chose 
not to does not mean they are incapable of doing so, which you seem to 
suggest.  If they are capable of doing so, then they, and not society, are 
responsible for their actions, because they have the *choice* to say no to 
society.

>>>>>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).
>>
>>        When one person speaks of government, he is not always talking about
>>the same thing another is.  For instance, I was taught in high school
>>(erroneously) about government's inherent powers.  Powers it has simply
>>by virtue of the fact it is a government.  I didn't buy that then, I don't
>>buy that now, and the Constitution clearly says that's not the way ours
>>works.  Yet I've known plenty of people who would accept that.  When I
>>speak of government, it is with the very basic understanding that it has
>>no powers other than what are granted to it.  This confuses some I've
>>discussed things with, because that is contrary to the way they've always
>>defined it.
>
>In our system, you are correct.  Our government is constituted
>(literally) by a piece of paper.  The powers granted to that body are
>very specifically stated in plain english.  But what of societies where
>the rule of law is not so clearly demarcated by a piece of paper?  Don't
>they have government too?  You are speaking of our government as if it
>were the template by which all others should be measured.  It isn't.
>It's one among many.

	Our government (the theory, not the reality) is a very good 
government.  Better than most.  I'm not suggesting all others be measureg 
against it, only that we view these things in a different way.  *I* believe 
that the only legitimate powers a government may have are those given to it 
by the consent of the governed.  That is the way I generally use the word.  
I don't suggest that is the *only* way to use it, only that when two people 
discuss an issue, they often don't realize they are using words in different 
manners.

>>          Obviously you and I are using society in different ways.
>
>I don't think so.  We are on the same wavelength about what society is
>and isn't.  You have move substantially from your original position of
>denying its existance to admitting the existence of social norms and
>values.

	I have moved not one iota from my original position.  I have not 
denied the existance of society.  I deny that it is an independent entity 
apart from the individuals which make it up.

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