Human nature: man vs society

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How shall we view individualism?

Is it a false state before that of a collective? Where the truer man is the patriot, the family man, the bureaucrat, and the cog? For where do human values emerge other than from the context of society? Where else does language emerge? What sense can be made of an island-man? After all, where are our generals without their support? Or our philosophers without the preceding idea to argue against?

Or is individualism the truest sense of a person? Where the truest man is the hero, the agent of change, the egoist, and the madman? After all, who shares our being but ourselves? Who shares our goals and purpose? Who can know what lies in our heights and our depths, and is willing to follow us there, but ourselves?

How shall society look in fulfillment of our sense of human being? Shall we be communists for the sake of man's collective nature, and his kinship with other men? Or shall we be libertarians and individualist anarchists, disavowing all ties but those that the individual chooses?

Why is our favored sense of man truer?

ahh the hairless ape.

i think as time goes on especially since we have tv's and all man is getting brainwashed into thinking being an individual is cool, but also being bombarded with looking like everyone else, so this really leaves the man confused i would think. i personally think man is a reactory animal, with some compassion when needed. maybe this is because he is getting mixed signals on weather or not to be an individual or one of many

We are born into families and individually we are quite helpless for the first two years of life. We are born weak, helpless and ignorant. We acquire language, custom and knowledge from our care givers. Consequently we cannot be, by nature, purely atomic and individual. On the other hand each of us come with an ego along with our eyes, hands and lungs. So we are both egoistic and social concurrently.

ruveyn

man is an animal that thinks too much.

Very interesting questions, AG. For some reason, this post seems odd coming from you...not sure why. I voted I do not know.

"Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage" ~Smashing Pumpkins

hahaha

Evidently, by that statement, you have decided to opt out.

A human being is a product of individual genes and of environment/society. Loosely speaking a human being is both an individual and a citizen, but the individual is produced as much by society as by genes, and the citizen as much by genes as by society.

Which one seems truer, individual or citizen, depends on which context/framework you are considering them in. It is entirely a question of perspective; whether one looks at a human being from a subjective or an objective point of view, for instance.

Sciences tend to consider humans from the objective point of view, in which a human is a cog, and arts and humanities from a subjective point of view, in which a human is an individual. Both perspectives are equally valid, but incomplete without the other.

There is also the view that a human being is neither, because is inextricable part of a whole, and that the label itself, ( "man"/human being ), is the product of a fundamentally alienated perspective on life/the universe, creating an illusion of a distinct "group" where there is none.

But so long as we are using the term at all I would say that a human being is both a citizen/cog and an individual. Both "faces"/views exist simultaneously, and equally, ( in any society ), but, depending on one's own experience/upbringing, ( society, and environment acting on one's genes ), one of them will tend to be more immediately "obvious"/acknowledged than the other. eg. communism appears to encourage the citizen/cog at the expense of the individual, but only because of the perspective that it argues from, not because of the structures it imposes on people.

As with all words, the "sense"/meaning of "man"/a human being is socially constructed.

PS. I voted for the third option, but realise, too late, that "between both" is not the same thing as "both", ( which is my belief ).
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Last edited by ouinon on 09 May 2009, 7:21 am, edited 3 times in total.

PS. Perhaps related to this;

"Man" viewed by the sciences is primarily an "effect", ( of chemical reactions, genes, etc ), rather than a cause, except in the special case of "The Environment", global warming etc, where man is seen as a cause/active agent, which world-view gets into religious territory almost because of the mix of cause and effect involved.

Whereas the arts and humanities tend to approach "man" as a "cause", ( active agent/individual most of the time, ( until you "hit" religion, where "man" begins to be seen as an "effect" again, but at the most "individual" level ).

But the social sciences, ( sociology, politics, psychology, and some aspects of geography and history ), see "man" as both, which might explain why they are seen as such "muddly" subjects, ( like religion ), not enough of either one or the other for the methods of either to "work" absolutely.

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Hmm.... interesting. If you can figure out why I would be glad to hear it.


I have to agree with richardbenson, this is an awesome quote in this context.

Actually, "between both" and "both" are basically the same in this situation, as the word "between" is not meant to reflect something that is in both categories to a significant extent. The reason I said "between" is more because people tend to like moderation more than they tend to like paradox, so you picked the proper choice for all of my intentions.

Part of it may be due to our past conversation on the person as an individual vs. organism, and part of it may be due to your anarchist views. I always viewed you to be one who is more in touch with the sense of the person as an individual than perhaps someone like me. I started a family very young, so although my goals and motives might be somewhat selfish based due to my being part of the collective, I still see those goals and motives to be for the overall group and I think this blurs my own sense of being an individual. Also, I read your questions to be things you question, rather than just questions to see how others might answer...which might have been mistaken on my part.

I don't remember that conversation so well at the moment, but I have a terrible memory.

Well, you did misread my questions. I usually try to avoid placing a personal opinion in my original post, and thus strive for balance, as I do not want to force people to argue against me, but rather argue against each other and develop their own ideas. I have been bothered by this intellectual idea somewhat though, but I still do take my stand.

Yes, I do take the individual stand. Perhaps this is influenced by a history of feeling alienated from other people, and rejected by a number of authorities. It is also influenced by the methodological individualism found in economics.

In the end, I side with Mises:

(Human Action chap 2, sec 4)

Kierkegaard

(Purity of the Heart is to Will One Thing chap 13)

And Stirner

(The Ego and It's Own, intro section)

Thus, man is a decider, responsible for the self(who else is there to be this?), and directed by the self.

(Ok, better quotes might exist from other thinkers, but I like those folks)

Nature and nurture definitely both have an effect, but I think ultimately the nature becomes more important. If one feels their society is not beneficial to them, their nature will usually kick in. Nature is the cause of all social deviation. People become survivalists, steal, and become addicts because of nature. Ultimately, most of the time one's own survival and condition are more important than what society dicates to us.

Man is an individual. But no man is an island: we are, in many ways, interdependent, and influence one another as members of the same society. Still, I tend to dislike abstractions from individuals to collectives in a lot of cases. Perhaps it is part of my autism that I "cannot see the forest for the trees," but there would be no forest if there were no trees. The abstraction is meaningless (and indeed false) if the specific individual cases did not exist to support it.

It seems fairly clear to me that humans are a gregarious herd/pack animal, we are pretty hopeless alone in fact isolation tends to send us mad. As far back as we can go in history we have worked in a pack environment. The Australian Aboriginals being the oldest surviving civilisation are a living testament to this.

We need to live in a herd for protection, increased hunting ability as well as mental stability. Even though we live more and more in physical isolation we still herd via the internet. We use this medium to congregate as well as compete. I would say that as a generalisation that we are individuals that NEED to be in a collective.