| Re: A man after Publius' heart |
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Group: alt.philosophy · Group Profile
Author: EdEd Date: Sep 4, 2008 19:39
Publius wrote:
>> You hit upon my input here. It seems to me we exist as a dichotomy,
>> where our aggregation is psychological to a great degree, and we act
>> as individuals internally, but as collectives externally. I have for
>> some time argued that we exist with concentric human identity, like
>> circular waves a stone might make upon a placid pond, where the
>> location the stone splashes is the primal self, and upon each
>> concentric circle, we leave the primal self to take on grearter entity
>> of a more collective identity.
>
> Many persons do exactly that --- they identify themselves with some group
> whom they perceive to be "like them" in various ways (ways they consider
> important). They apparently gain some sense of security or enhanced stature
> by so identifying themselves. The point is, however, that those extended
> self concepts are variable within a community and are idiosyncratic to the
> individual. I.e., they reflect the individual's *perception* of the
> structure of his society, and of his role within it or relationship to it.
> They do not accurately describe the actual structure of his society.
Nor does it need to. The most common form is "teaming", identifying
with a group that one perceives as persuing a common goal; like a
football player identifing with his team or a union member identifying
with his union buddies, or a Chamber of Commerce member identifying
with his fellow merchants. It is quite likely that in each of these
examples that the perceiver "sees" the group (he may belong to many)
as more influential in society as a whole that it actually is; but
this does not affect the utility and emotional pleasure they get from
the group. The groups actually do have a role in society, the fact
that the members overrate that influence does not obviate that role.
Using your terminology, the groups, qua groups, act as CAS's; as do
the members, qua individuals. The DAR has long survived any
individual member yet retains an identifiable "personality". This
theme repeats throughout society at many levels including very large
groups.
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