From: PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu (David Veal)
Subject: Re: Libertarianism...
Organization: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 05:15:08 GMT

In article <1992Dec31.025407.21682@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
prs9k@brain.med.virginia.edu (Phil Scarr) writes:

>In article <PA146008.588.725735293@utkvm1.utk.edu> PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu (Davd Veal) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec30.121703.12761@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> prs9k@brain.med.vrginia.edu (Phil Scarr) writes:
>>
>>>In article <168CC143D0.PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu> PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu (Davi 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.

        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.
        Black Holes and quarks exist independently of those things which
we use to observe them.  Society does not.  Society does not have an
objective existance in the same way black holes, quarks, and human beings
do.  They are not objects, they are relationships.

>>
>>>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!!!

       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.  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.

>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.

        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.

>>
>>>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.

        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.

>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.

        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.
        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.
        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.

>>>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.

         I am not a programmed automaton.

>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.  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.
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.

>>       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.

> 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.

>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?

>> 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"?

         One day the higher brain functions came on-line and there
I was.  The neurons jump-started, the synapses fire, and bam away
we go!

>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?

       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.

>>>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?

        Individuals.  Where individuals agree, society moves forward.
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.
       They do, eventually.  History is full of men and women who
went against their socialization, for good or ill.

>>>>          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).

        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.
          Obviously you and I are using society in different ways.
          Take the word "work," as in "This system works."  To some this
means that it simply manages to sustain itself.  Others, when they say
it, are talking about a system which protects certain rights.  Still
others only consider something to "work" when it provides basic
necessities for every person.  Finally are those who consider "work"
to be total economic and social equality.  Yet they will all argue
about whether such and such a system "works."  One person may argue
their system works, while another argue it doesn't, and they both be
right because they're using different definitions and never
reconcile that fact.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Veal     Division of Continuing Education Information Services Group
               University of Tennessee, Knoxville
               PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc