From: prs9k@brain.med.virginia.edu (Phil Scarr)
Subject: Re: Libertarianism...
Organization: Neuroclinical Trials Center, University of Virginia
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 14:52:22 GMT

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:
>
>>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:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>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.

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!!!!  If you eliminate these
phenomena, the thing ceases to exist.  This is exactly my point about
society.  While there can be no society without individuals, YOU CANNOT
HAVE INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT SOCIETY!  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.

>>>       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.

How can you have individuals without a society?  Where would these
mystery people come from?  This is absurd!

> 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.

>
>>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.

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).  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.

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.

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

>
>>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.

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.

>        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.  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.

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

>>>
>>>       "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.

Actually you are.  We all are.  There is not much use in denying social
reality.  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.


>
>>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.


> 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.

>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.  I am an athiest.  I don't
believe in the supernatural.  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.  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.  Capitalism is not a natural state any more than
communism is.  Both are sets of learned behaviors.  LEARNED BEHAVIORS,
not part of nature.

>
>>>       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.

>
>> 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).  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".

>
>>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.  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.
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".
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.

Now that brings us to biology.  Biology conspires to present us with a
series of ranges which can either be maximized or minimized depending
upon SOCIAL and ENVIRONMENTAL conditions.  Malnutrition stunts growth,
lack of access to good preventative health care inhibits good health,
and lack of books in the home stunts the IQ.  All of the biological
variables have ranges which environment and society (and individual
fortitude) can move up or down.

>
>>> 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!

Not quite.  Ever hear of a tabula rasa?  That's what babies are (in a
sense).  remember those Wolf-Boys?   They were, for all intents and
purposes, wolves.

>
>>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.

I think I've covered this bit already.

>
>>>
>>>        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.

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 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.

>       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!!!


>
>>>>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.

>          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.

>          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

	-Phil
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