[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

Of course there is some one-on-one violence in contemporary  HG groups as there no doubt was among prehistoric HG groups but that is not the same thing as war.

[my bold]robbo, I agree with much of your post.One key thing is your outlining of the concept of 'violence', which I've also stressed is an ideological concept, and how one regards 'violence' will determine one's view of h-g 'violence'.If the ideology being followed by the anthropologist is 'individualist', then 'one-on-one violence' counts as 'violence'.If the ideology being followed by the anthropologist is 'socialist', then 'war' counts as 'violence'.The former is about biological contact and personal pain, the latter about social conflict and widespread destruction.

 Violence is conventionally understood in terms of the presumed death count,  This is what the archaelogists and anthropologists are primarily disputing in the debate on hunter gatherer violence – how many people were actually killed – although of course there can be non fatal and also "structural" violence Also once again to remind you recognition that individuals exist or possess an individuality  is NOT to be confused with "individualism"  Individualism is a specific politico-economic doctrine which is focussed  outwardly on the relations that individuals have with one another and posits self interest as the driving force in the way they relate to each other

[robbo203]

ALB wrote:

Here's a message received at Head Office from somebody in Japan:

Quote:

To socialist party of GB: Break off relations with Rothchilds promptly 21 Feb., 2015 tatsmaki (Japan)     According to a space information from the Creators of the Space blocks control world, the Socialist Party of GB is a tool bribed for the purpose of self-protection of Rothchilds being shapeshifters of draconians of the Draco to avoid sanctions by the Creators. Draconians of the Draco are the official emblem of London city. They are bosses of leptilian-humanoids of the Lizard being the dictator-ruler of the USA. They are invaders-rulers of the Earth since the ancient times.     The GHQ of draconians and leptilian-humanoids in Agarta of inner world of the Earth was liquidated by the Creators on Aug. 17, 2014. But Illuminati, G20 leaders, ruling layers of each nation and activists elements of it's various fields are continuing wrongdoings all over the world.       The Socialist Party of GB has raised a slogan of "Abolish money! ", but it is not for social justice and is for such an ugly selfish purpose of Rothchilds.     The Creators gave them an order so that the Socialist Party GB breaks off with Rothchilds promptly and becomes the independent political party of the British people.      The Earth will be disappeared from our Space as the last general cleaning of the Earth in 2015 by the Creators.

Come to the meeting this afternoon when all will be revealed: http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/event/what-conspiracy-theories-arent-telling-you-head-office-3pm   

 Hilarious.  Maybe conspiracy theories are themselves  part of a wider conspiracy to entertain , distract  and generally lead  folk up the garden path – a paradox if there ever was oneIn any case whats wrong with lizards? I rather like them  – although I prefer geckos here in sunny Spain as they are better at catching flies

[robbo203]

oh,  and as an example if what we are up against as socialists, read this essay by E O Wilson on "Is War Inevitable" http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jun/07-is-war-inevitable-by-e-o-wilson then tell me why you consider the question of hunter gather violence is  a matter of little importance

[robbo203]

stuartw2112 wrote:

We see eye to eye on that at least Robin! Though don't we both come from a political tradition that, in caricature at least, makes equally mad claims about billions voting? ;)To get back to the subject of the thread, though, before we get told off by the moderator again, I think socialists should be perfectly relaxed about these kinds of questions. So what if it was found that a tendency towards violence and war is innate, hard-wired into our genes? If true, we need to know it. Not least so we can create social structures that promote peace and understanding between innately crazy creatures. State repression is hardly the only or the best way to achieve this – as anthropology shows all too well.

 Yes, Stuart, to answer your first question, we do, but  the vote in question  is presumably a  one-off thing and does not entail the necessity of acquiring an intimate close knowledge of say , String  Theory, along with thousands upon thousands of other scientific theories in order to determine their "truth" by means of a knowledgeable vote. Individuals dont have to read all 3 volumes of Capital to understand and want socialism.  There is simply no comparison here and I have no hesitation in deciding which one of these is the "mad claim". On your second point, you raise an interesting question and I link this to Vin's suggestion in another post that  hunter gatherer violence is a matter of little import in the struggle to achieve socialism and that we should be focussing on things that matter – the problems that workers have to endure under capitalism.  Of course we should be doing that but the question of hunter gather violence should not be so readily dismissed as being of little or no importance to socialist.s,  We should be aware that it is used as ideological tool  against those who question the dominant capitalist ideology and put forward a socialist alternative to capitalism. Consider what lies behind the argument  that "war is innate, hard-wired into our genes".  It stems from the idea of group selection and the notion that "in-group amity" necessitates  "out-group enmity".  Or to put in more familiar terms. we need a common enemy in order to unite and express solidarity with each other as human beings living in  distinct groups.  War, in other words, is the basis of our human sociality. It is necessary for human progress and, above all, it means violently  pitting "us" against "them". I'm astonished that any socialist cannot see the central relevance of this to the case for socialism.  How often are we told that socialism might work on a small face to face scale but "world socialism"?  – Forget it!    Human beings are naturally prone to fighting with each other rather than coming together to forge a common global society . Or as Edward Wilson  put it "War is embedded in our very nature". If so that means a permanent state of global disunity In that event  I don't see much hope for socialism ever being established and focusing on the problems that workers face now will be to no avail – all that could only ever lead to ultimately is settling for some reformist programme if you wanted to actually do something about those problems as opposed to just talking about them. Socialism would be out of question since according to the theory , global cooperation and solidarity is out of the question. Well, I disagree with the theory. Hunter gatherer groups like the Aborigines in fact maintain vast networks of solidarity extending over hundreds of kilometres and there is a degree of porosity between groups,   War in the sense of systematic organised violence between groups is a recent phenomenon as Brian Ferguson points out and I wish people here would read the links I gave earlier to the stuff he has written.  Of course there is some one-on-one violence in contemporary  HG groups as there no doubt was among prehistoric HG groups but that is not the same thing as war.  And unlike in the Paleolithic era HG groups today  do not really have the option of moving on if local resources are depleted – not with national boundaries and special reserves into which they are shunted like some endangered species for tourist to take photos of.  Nomadism , the ability to move around freely and vote with your feet, was a very major  component in the well honed strategy of conflict avoidance among prehistoric hunter gatherers.  Also there are other explanations for human solidarity than the supposed link between  "in group amity" and "out-group enmity".  In-group amity does not have entail outgroup enmity.  The awareness among members of a group that they depend on each other and benefit from each other can shift the focus instead towards the internal dynamics of the group with the application of sanctions against free riders for example At bottom what is at stake in this debate on hunter gatherers is what it means to be a human being and we should not lose sight of this. Its implications for the struggle to achieve world socialism can hardly be overstated.

[robbo203]

Vin wrote:

My feelings exactly. We could try talking about the issues that affect the working class at the moment instead of 'science for socialists' and 'hunter gatherers'

 I don't know if I would go along with that sentiment at all, Vin.  I think the question of what happened in the past , or rather how we interpret the past,  IS highly relevant.  You are not just discussing issues that affect the working class at the moment for its own sake, presumably; you are wanting to put forward  an alternative to capitalism. However you look at it,  that is an ideological battle  that you are engaged in, at the heart of which is what we perceive human beings to be and to be capable of.  On that point I agree with LBird, even  if I disagree with him on many others. Do you imagine that socialism would be on the cards if it were widely felt that we were naturally prone to inflict violence on each other on the slightest pretext and that  this alleged predisposition towards violence – justifying the need for a state  – is something that we acquired in our remote hunter gatherer  past. ?  I don't think so. These kind of theoretical issues have to be tackled – not in isolation from but in conjunction with the kind of issues you have in mind

[robbo203]

stuartw2112 wrote:

You say hold a vote, LB, but how is a rational individual to vote? Surely only by making a good faith effort to decide between the alternatives based on their truth value, ie, on how they measure up to reality?

 Stuart, you could ask LBird how he expects a global population 7 billion  to vote – and vote knowledgeably –  on each of thousands upon thousands of scientific theories that are churned every year to determine their " truth value" or indeed why this is is even necessary (if I believe the earth revolves around the sun and the majority thinks otherwise I am not going to be dissuaded from what I believe just because a majority thinks otherwise).  You could ask LBird but don't expect an answer – he has been dodging this question over several threads now. His views are an odd mixture of the basically sound – e.g. no branch of human  knowledge including anthropology is "value free"  – and the truly  nutty. .  But "thats just my opinion" as the guy on RT keeps on sayingFirst warning:  1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.

[robbo203]

This might be of  interest to some here – an article entitled "Analysing Steven Pinker's rates of violence in non-state societies" that I stumbled uponhttps://www.academia.edu/5735381/Analysing_Steven_Pinkers_rates_of_violence_in_non-state_societies Tan makes two or three interesting points – that much of the data supporting the " war is innate" camp is inconsistent- that in absolute terms violent deaths in non state societies are statistically very small indeed, typically in double digits or less for most of the groups mentioned.  But if you convert the figures into violent deaths per 100.000 that makes it seem like these societies are very violent when compared to state-based societies- that what is counted as "war deaths" within non state societies may very well have resulted from state violence inflicted on non state societies. As Tan puts it:to reiterate what has been mentioned in the previous section, we are also unclear whether some of these figures included war deaths incurred as a result of clashes with the state. Whether it does or not brings us back to the same dilemma that was voiced earlier- i.e.. is the Leviathan a force for suppressing violence as Pinker has been saying or whether it is a perpetuator. As to Pinker, I'm beginning to somewhat change my opinion of him. I don't think he is quite the genetic determinist he is made out to be.   In The Blank Slate, he evidently seeks to disassociate himself from such a position:Though no book on human nature can hope to be uncontroversial, I did not write it to be yet another "explosive" book, as dust jackets tend to say.   I am not, as many people assume, countering an extreme "nurture" position with an extreme "nature" position, with the truth lying somewhere in between.  In some cases, an extreme environmentalist explanation is correct: which language you speak is an obvious example, and differences between races and ethnic groups in test scores may be another.  In other cases, such as certain inherited neurological disorders, an extreme hereditarian explanation is correct.  In most cases the correct explanation will invoke a complex interaction between heredity and environment: culture is crucial, but culture could not exist without mental faculties that allow humans to create and learn culture to being with.  My goal in this book is not to argue that genes are everything and culture is nothing – no one believes that – but to explore why the extreme position (that culture is everything) is so often seen as moderate and the moderate position is seen as extreme.  (Preface) The problem lies with his representation  of the state as exerting a pacifying influence on the population.  The implication would seem to be that if the state were to disappear tomorrow then rates of violence would increase sharply to levels they are claimed to have been in non state societies.  But this might not be quite correct.  Pinker's seems to attribute the relative decline in violence to social factors other than the state Notably: 1. the feminisation of society – significant since most violence is committed y men aged 18-302. the "escalator of reason" – the civilising influence resulting increases in educational levels etc3.the expanding circle of ethics – the tendency to morally identify with ever larger social entities4."gentle commerce" – the idea that commercial interdependencies make it more difficult to wage war Some of these factors are a bit more  questionable than others.  But they do go to show that Pinker's position is more nuanced than it might appear to be on a first reading….

[robbo203]

stuartw2112 wrote:

Robin: "Am I to take it that you too have become a pro-statist by virtue of your evident enthusiasm for what Diamond has to say?"Me; No, not at all. Early on in his book, Diamond says explicitly that his book shows why the "dreams" of anarchists can never be realised. I'm fairly sure he's wrong about that – I hope so anyway. I'm sure he's wrong about lots of things. But his books are wonderful.

 Good to hear that Stuart!

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

We all know people are naturally capable of both grotesque violence as well as incredible kindness.  The much more interesting question is what causes them to behave in one way or another.

[my bold]This is a contradictory statement, robbo.If something is 'natural', then that is the cause of the 'behavour'.

 There is nothing contradictory about the above statement. I'm talking about what  people capable of doing; I'm not necessarily trying to explain what causes them to do what they do. 

LBird wrote:

The beginning of wisdom, though, is starting to realise that all 'facts' reflect the 'opinion' of the researcher. Carr's What is History? would be relevent reading here, for those comrades who do realise that simplying looking for the 'facts of anthropology' is the really pointless activity. Stuart will remain the prisoner of the framework of the last anthropologist that they read.

 Yes , we know all this LBird.  Why do you feel the need to endlessly repeat this same old argument as if know one else apart from your good self is privy to the insight that there is no such thing as a value free anthropology  or science?  Can  we kinda move on with the argument a bit, eh? ..  Its getting quite boring hearing the same old thing being constantly regurgitated

[robbo203]

stuartw2112 wrote:

I have not followed all of what looked like a mostly pointless debate on this thread, but I am interested in the ostensible subject matter, and thought this link might be of interest – it's Jared Diamond defending his recent (and brilliant) book on the subject:http://www.jareddiamond.org/Jared_Diamond/Rousseau_Revisited.html

 Interesting link though I  can't say I was overly impressed., Stuart.   Diamond along with Pinker and co have been charged with confusing complex HG societies – tribes  –  with simple HG societies  – bands  – and also with confusing hunter gatherer societies in general  with horticulturalist societies.  In his book "The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?" (2012) Diamond makes much of the fact that the Dani people of Papua New Guinea have a reputation for being violent.  However, not only are the Dani tribal in social organisation; they also happen to be agriculturalists practicing an elementary system of property rights. With territoriality and sedentism coming into the picture this would indeed provide an incentive for violent conflict.  but the point about simple HG  bands is that they are nomadic – there is no territory to defend.  I note that Diamond in the article you posted is still talking about tribal societies not band societies Why is this important? Well, as John Horgan points out in the link I posted earlier One of the most insidious modern memes holds that war is innate, an adaptation bred into our ancestors by natural selection. This hypothesis—let’s call it the “Deep Roots Theory of War”–has been promoted by such intellectual heavyweights as Steven Pinker, Edward Wilson, Jared Diamond, Richard Wrangham, Francis Fukuyama and David Brooks.  (http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2013/07/18/new-study-of-foragers-undermines-claim-that-war-has-deep-evolutionary-roots)If it is the case that "war is innate, an adaptation bred  into ancestors by natural selection" then this would have had to have happened a long long time ago – when in fact human beings were universally living as simple hunter gather societies – not tribal societies. Tribal societies are too recent  for this warlike "adaptation" to have taken effect.  So in order to make this argument stick you would have to demonstrate that war was a fact of life when we were all simple hunter gatherers way back in the distant past. And that is precisely where Diamond , Pinker et come unstuck; they cannot produce such evidence as R  Brian  Ferguson has very effectively demonstrated in the link I provided So the Diamond-Pinker hypothesis falls at the first hurdle.  What worries me is that this is an argument that has ostensibly been used to justify the need for a state as a supposed  "pacifying influence" on the population  which is allegedly prone to this innate disposition to wage on their fellow human beings.  Am I to take it that you too have become a pro-statist by virtue of your evident enthusiasm for what Diamond has to say? I sincerely hope not Stuart Oh, and just as an aside, I note in Diamond's article he saysTribal victors kill their captives and don’t take prisoners, because they can’t be readily imprisoned or exploited. Is this necessarily the case though?  Its a  long time since I read Evans Pritchard book on the Nuer so I may be wrong here  but I vaguely recall that in their sporadic fighting with the neighbouring Dinka tribe that occasionally, instead of being killed,  the defeated Dinka would simply be assimilated and became Nuer themselves .  If I recall correctly Evans Pritchard was saying that the Dinka and the Nuer were often one and the same people.  Correct me if I am wrong

stuartw2112 wrote:

Regardless of the facts in the debate about hunter gatherers, I would have thought that the merest introspection would reveal that human beings are naturally capable of and indeed delight in the most grotesque violence and stupidity (as well as kindness and intelligence). If introspection won't do it, just look at the contributions to this forum (including mine)!

 Yes but this is not saying anything profound or novel. We all know people are naturally capable of both grotesque violence as well as incredible kindness.  The much more interesting question is what causes them to behave in one way or another. I don't think that has got anything really to do with our genes

[robbo203]

YMS That Radical Anthropology article by Peter Gray you  posted a link to was very useful and informative.  In connection with this discussion I think the following passage is highly relevant: Essentially all researchers who write about the social lives of hunter-gatherers emphasize the high value placed on individual autonomy. The descriptions make it clear that hunter-gatherers’ sense of autonomy is different from the individualism that characterizes modern, Western, capitalist cultures. Western individualism tends to pit each person against others in competition for resources and rewards. It includes the right to accumulate property and to use disparities in wealth to control the behavior of others. Thus, Western individualism tends, in principal, to set each person apart from each other person. In contrast, as Tim Ingold has most explicitly pointed out, the hunter-gatherers’ sense of autonomy is one that connects each person to others, rather than sets them apart but does so in a way that does not create dependencies. Their autonomy does not include the right to accumulate property or to use power or threats to control others’ behavior or to make others indebted to them. Their autonomy does, however, allow people to make their own decisions from day-to-day and moment-to-moment about their own activities, as long as they do not violate the implicit and explicit rules of the band, such as rules about sharing. For example, individual hunter-gatherers are free, on any day, to join a hunting or gathering party or to stay at camp and rest, depending purely on their own preference. This is a freedom that goes far beyond the freedom of most workers in Western cultures

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

I'd simply ask, YMS, why you and robbo keep using the loaded term 'individuals'.Why use an ideological term so closely connected to the bourgeoisie?Why draw parallels between 'individuals' who live in very different societies, which is also a method used as an ideological justification for 'what exists, now' by showing the alleged 'similarities' with 'what existed, then'?If neither you nor robbo share neither ideology nor method with the bourgeoisie (as you both say that you don't), why employ the ideology of 'individuals' and the comparative method of 'sameness'.Especially as the 'individuality' being expressed is one of 'biological traits' ('that we all share, after all, we're all humans, we individuals', implying bosses and workers, being 'human' should look to their similarities), rather than emphasise the contrast and vast differences between societies and their production methods.What's the fascination with 'individuals', for alleged socialists?

 Groan.  Isn't the term "bourgeoisie" itself closely connected to the "bourgeoisie"? Why do you keeping using this "loaded term" if this does not demonstrate your own bourgeoisie way of looking at the world? See – this is what your kind 2+2=5 logic comes to. You end up trying yourself in knots. Look, nobody is saying that the individual is not "socially constituted". I've said that several times to you but as usual you are just not listening.  You just bang on with your bee in your bonnet  like you've stumbled across  some revolutionary new sociological insight but the rest of us, philistines that we are, are unwilling to accept it , are too stuck in the mud and blinded by bourgeois ideology to embrace it. Its getting tedious, LBird. Very tedious The "bourgeois individual" is quite a different animal to the "feudal  individual" or again to the individual in a hunter gatherer society.  We know this but you are trying to tell us more – that only under the rule of the bourgeoisie  , under capitalism, does the "individual" qua individual come into being , that before that "individuals" simply didn't exist and after that individuals too will not exist.  But this is ahistoric nonsense. It rides roughshod over the sociological (and indeed Marxist) maxim that individuals are not only constituted by society but continuously constitute or reconstitute society..  You can't have society without individuals or individuals without society. They hang together. They are two sides of the same coin There is no sense of this dialectic or interaction between individuals and society at all in your philosophical musings which is why these come across as so sterile and barren.  For you individuals don't exist; only social categories exist – "I'm a worker not an individual" – despite the fact social categories too consist of individuals.  Your whole approach is simplistic and black-or-white. Can one not be a worker and an individual too?You askWhy draw parallels between 'individuals' who live in very different societies, which is also a method used as an ideological justification for 'what exists, now' by showing the alleged 'similarities' with 'what existed, then'? Actually, it shows quite the opposite!  What it demonstrates is that anatomically identical individuals with the same mental equipment  as us can live under a wide variety of social systems. That being so there can be nothing more subversive than such a  thought as far as the existing capitalist social order is concerned for it demonstrates very clearly that there is nothing in human nature that prevents us living in a different kind of society.  You call yourself a communist yet you would wish us  to spike this most subversive and revolutionary thought! In fact I would go further – if what you say held any water then the whole Marxian concept of alienation would make no sense at all.  The "individual" in your absolutist behaviourist schema would just be assimilated into some infinitely mouldable putty shaped by the forces of history over which we would have no control. The kind of logic that underlies your thinking is the same kind of logic that informs the racist  with his or her essentialist talk of "races". It stands in sharp contrast to the humanism and universalism that informs Marxism.  Yes we are workers under capitalism but we are also defiantly human beings and it is the fact that we are human beings, that we have certain needs,   that we chafe under the condition of being  exploited members of the working class and therefore seek to overthrow capitalism.  If that were not they case then from whence would arise the incentive to overthrow capitalism?  If we were totally mouldable, the product of  our social environment , if there was absolutely nothing about being a human being that transcended any and every kind of social system that human beings have ever lived under, then it totally conceivable that we could be indefinitely conditioned to accept capitalism as not only the best of all possible worlds but the only possible world. Your logic permits this. And so to answer your question  -what is the fascination with individuals for socialists? – it is because we are ourselves human individuals one and all.  Even you LBird. I  doubt very much that  you are some 3D hologram programmed by certain remote impersonal social forces to endlessly parrot the mantra that there are no such things as individuals – only "society.". The utter absurdity of your whole position is exposed by your glib dismissal of the fact that hunter gatherer possess a strong sense of individuality  and an interior subjective  life as "ahistoric waffle".  What you are saying in effect is that  hunter gatherers had no feelings, were incapable of feeling sorrow, anger, remorse, happiness, boredom  and the full gamut of emotions which some "superior" being (presumably yourself) is capable of feeling. No? Well then why  come out with this daft statement of yoursWhy draw parallels between 'individuals' who live in very different societies, which is also a method used as an ideological justification for 'what exists, now' by showing the alleged 'similarities' with 'what existed, then'?There is nothing "alleged" about the similarities I have referrred to above. They are actual similiarities It is precisely because hunter gatherers are capable of precisely the same emotions as ourselves i.e.. are similar to us – that they are of huge interest, more so because for over 95 % of our existence on this planet we human beings lived as hunter gatherers.  That may very well have important consequences for us today and for the struggle to achieve a communist world

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

The hunter gatherer like the modern proletarian has what we call an interior subjective reality: self consciousness. Its something that acquire through a process of socialisation.

Yeah, after a busy day 'hunting and gathering' our wages in the factories and offices, we often stop off at 'The Watering Hole', where we quench our thirst alongside our socio-economic bretheren, the Kalahari Bushmen, where we all marvel at the identity of our 'self-consciousness'.Do us a favour robbo: recognise this ahistorical woffle about 'interior subjective reality' as the nonsense that it is.It's bourgeois ideology, and you're propagating 'ruling class ideas' about anthropology.

 Oh so, you have penetrated the mind of a hunter gather and concluded in your seemingly infinite wisdom that he or she has no sense of self awareness, has  no feelings of anger , rage , happiness , jealousy , sadness or love. These things are just…er…"bourgeois ideology" and "ruling class ideas".  Presumably when the hunter gatherer reports to the anthropologist or to another hunter gatherer that he or she dislike some member of the band we should altogether discount this.  According to you such a person is incapable of reflective conscious thought and presumably is to be regarded  a "mere machine" as Descartes said of animals.You remind me of  the case of Albert Magnus, the 13th century scholar, whose pupils included St Thomas Acquinas. Magnus argued  that while humans were indeed distinguishable from "the brutes", the latter could be divided into true animals and manlike creatures or "similitudines homines"  which included also, in his view,  pygmies.  Not even the obvious ability of pygmies to speak convinced Magnus that they warranted being categorised as "true humans" since their speech, he claimed,  was more akin to the mimicry of parrots: "Pygmies do not speak through reason but by the instinct of nature".  Except of  course in your case its a case of pygmies not having an "interior subjective life". The only thing that is "infinite" from where I am standing, LBird is not your wisdom but your colossal arrogance  compounded by the fact that you make absolutely no attempt whatsoever to justify your outrageous nonsensical claims about your fellow human beings

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

If I take this statement at face value, I'm left wondering why all your contributions, to every subject we've encountered, are about 'individuals', and none of them are about the 'society' within which those individuals find themselves.

 Another misrepresentation. I have constantly pointed out that its a two way thing, not a one way thing.  If you only see me talking about individuals that is because you have probably subconsciously blocked out the other side of the equation which I have also stressed – because it suits you to do so.  The point of my pointing out the importance of individuals was to counterbalance your nonsensical claims about individuals not existing etc etc. At no point did I ever suggest that individuals existed in some free floating atomistic sense free of any kind of social conditioning or context. I repeat my position is neither an individualistic one nor a  holistic one but an intermediate one. Kindly stop misrepresenting me!

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

Thanks for ignoring any discussion about the political ideologies of any of the authors mentioned.

Not true. I think it is has been quite clearly established that your political ideology is that of mystical holism. As such, I think you share a lot in common with much conservative sociological thought exemplified by the likes of Comte and Durkheim – not to mention the advocates of the totalitarian state to which individuals – oh dear! a swearword in your vocabulary ! – are expected to submit in complete obeisance and apologise for the fact of even existing.  I can't speak for anyone else  but my own ideology as I have several times pointed is one of libertarian communism in which individuals and society are seen as interdependent terms and meaningless without the other

LBird wrote:

Since none of you seem to like being critically questioned 

 Says the man who flatly refuses to answer critical questions asked of him

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