Re: Durkheim redux

From: Kenneth Van Oost (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Fri 08 Apr 2005 - 18:47:40 GMT

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    ----- Original Message ----- From: Scott Chase <osteopilus@yahoo.com> You wrote,
    > I'm thinking that Durkheim believed that socifacts had
    > emergent properties, where collective representations
    > are more than a sum of individual representations.
    > This might be a little vague, but he might have looked
    > at collective phenomenon as resulting from the way
    > individual phenomenon were arranged or organized.
    > There's a danger of vitalism when one takes holism to
    > extremes though.

    This boils down to my own long time hobby- horse_ we look at the wrong marker ! With what we end(ed) up with [ the collective represented behavior/ gesture/ performance/ word/ etc_ which thus apparently has been selected and evolves, and what is represented as Darwinian evolution] in IMO the wrong marker.

    The individuak, yet straighted by society over a serious amount of time, is the object we have to look at NOT what is collectively represented as the proper behavior to follow; the right gesture to make; the neat word to say. PC is a collective represented ( wanted) form of living together, NOT the will of all individuals involved. This boils down I know into a paradox_ Darwinian evolution/ selection paradigma's are involved ( the majority of the population is all for PC, so the rest must comply willingly or fight back in proper yet selected ways) where IMO, no Darwinian ( internal) process is needed to come to a conclusion ( for the individual)_ where thus a memetic ( Darwinian- like) proces is pre- supposed in the mind to set memes apart ( for or against PC) to get to the initial point.

    But what if the individual ( personal) memeset is working totally on its own, with no outside connection or attachment !? What then !? What if collectiviness is just a result of how individual stances were arranged and organized !? Darwinian processes of selection and evolution would be involved, but were to be NOT the motor behind the scheme !?

    Regards,

    Kenneth

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